The Naked Bible
The Truth about the most famous book in history
La autoridad que la obra reclama es un oficio, no una teología: la de quien tradujo diecinueve libros del Antiguo Testamento para Edizioni San Paolo y firma como «the author of the Italian interlinear translation» «Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 56». Desde ahí Biglino acota lo que dice: «I only pronounce myself on what I know. I tell what seems to me to be written, verbatim, in the Bible, that's all.» «Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 10».
Su tesis es de léxico antes que de doctrina: hay términos hebreos que, dice, no deben traducirse —Elohim, Yahweh, Kavod, Ruach, Elyon—, y sin esa traducción el texto cuenta otra cosa «Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 58». El glosario final del libro convierte el método en instrumento «Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · pp. 277-278».
La lectura literal se declara una entre varias legítimas, no la única: «All of them are legitimate, all of them are interesting, provided that we do not to presume to exclude the textual, literal reading» «Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 25» — dicho de la lectura simbólica, esotérica, gemátrica y cabalística.
Casi todo el cuerpo es prosa de Cattaneo. Las páginas de actualidad —Soleimani, el Great Reset, Davos, Viganò, la Agenda 2030— son estructura real del libro y están fichadas como tales, pero el material de Paolo Rumor lo introduce el narrador y Biglino se abstiene expresamente de juzgarlo «Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 44».
1235 afirmaciones · 2 fuentes · 2 atribuciones
Atribución
se consigna, jamás se afirma«Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 2»
«Biglino y Cattaneo — The Naked Bible (2021) · p. 2»
Cadena de la obra
el testimonio procesado, en esmeraldaAfirmaciones
1235 entradas — la voz de la obra, con su pasaje«I only pronounce myself on what I know. I tell what seems to me to be written, verbatim, in the Bible, that's all.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I have never encountered Him, amid those verses I studied.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Dios en los versículos que tradujo.
«What he does know, however, is that the God celebrated by monotheisms does not, unfortunately, dwell at all among those ancient scrolls.» — voz del narrador (Cattaneo), resumiendo a Biglino en tercera persona.
«They listed me, Mauro Biglino, as the author of the Italian interlinear translation.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el encargo de las cinco Meghillot.
«Edizioni San Paolo never published rash or improper translations, nothing not justified by the textuality of the original Hebrew.» — voz del narrador; el aval de la editorial de la Iglesia lo formula él, no Biglino.
«I've said many times in recent years that there are terms that, in my opinion, should not be translated. It's a question of integrity, since we do not know exactly what they mean.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«My greatest satisfaction was that, in those volumes, ‘Elohim' always stayed ‘Elohim'.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Books of Joshua and Judges would no longer be published, at least not in the version edited by Biglino» — voz del narrador: la ruptura con la editorial tras su primer libro propio.
«I have never dealt with the transcendent God. I limit myself to observing that he is not present in the Bible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, en la nota biográfica final.
«No – The Kavod of Yahweh. That, and nothing else, is what is actually written» — Biglino, entrecomillado, respondiendo a la pregunta del narrador «The glory of God?».
«Let me repeat that the Hebrew word Kavod is normally translated as ‘glory', but in reality it refers to a heavy powerful object.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«nearly the entire biblical text leads us to think of the Kavod as the device used by Yahweh both to get around and to fight.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«the Book of Ezekiel, in chapters 10 and 11, speaks clearly about what the Kavod does. It says that it rises from the ground, it moves and it lands. And when it takes off, it makes a loud noise.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«the Exodus only mentions the Kavod, a dangerous roaring aircraft.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It's a term that translates as ‘spirit' but it actually means something more like ‘a mass of air in movement'. Or ‘something that produces wind when it moves'.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Ruach.
«The Ruach seems to be much bigger, so a means of transportation of greater dimensions. The Kavod, on the other hand, appears to be the specific instrument of the God of the Israelites.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The verb in the Bible indicates the hovering typical of birds of prey.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el verbo de Génesis 1:2.
«even ‘Ruach' was not translated: it stayed ‘Ruach' – as, for example, in Genesis 1:2 where ‘the Ruach of the Elohim hovers over the waters'.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las ediciones interlineales.
«In Hebrew, Elohim is a plural word and consistently indicates a plurality of individuals» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Originally the Greek term Theos was in all probability an adjective indicating the qualities of a certain type of individuals.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is precisely the use of the Latin term Deus that made it possible to insert the concept of the one God.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la Vulgata.
«translating Yahweh as ‘the Lord' is a complete fabrication.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Not only were the Cherubim not angels, they were not even individuals in flesh and blood. It turns out, in fact, that they are machines. In this case, flying machines.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The first kind is the one described as present on top of the Ark of the Covenant, constituting some sort of radio communication device.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el narrador añade que la raíz de «Keruvim» «stands for ‘the act of covering'».
«The Most High is the absolute superlative, rendering the biblical term ‘Elyon'. But in reality it simply means ‘he who is above'.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«it is stated that it is Elyon, the supreme leader, who assigns the peoples to the various Elohim, and it is on that occasion that Yahweh is assigned the family of Jacob» — voz del narrador, sobre Deuteronomio 32.
«This was a ‘special' community of particularly intelligent super-Sapiens able to understand the orders of the Elohim, the Lords of the Gan Eden, later improperly renamed the Garden of Eden.» — voz del narrador, resumiendo a Biglino sobre los Adamitas.
«Nowhere is it written that the life of the Adamites was eternal in the Gan Eden. Hardly surprising, since not even the Elohim were immortal!» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«the term Shakhar means ‘to get drunk, to speak nonsense.'» — voz del narrador, glosando el término.
«Words to be replaced in order to read the Bible while respecting the authors of the Old Testament.» — encabezado del glosario final, que sustituye God→Elohim, Lord→Yahweh, Most High→Elyon, Spirit of God→Ruach of the Elohim, Glory of God→Kavod, Eternity→Olam, Almighty→El-Shadday.
«In making these replacements, it is not even necessary to ask about the meaning of the terms.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la abstención sobre el significado es parte del método.
«How they made wander me Elohim far from the house of my father» — el interlineal de Génesis 20:13 tal como lo transcribe el narrador, con el verbo en plural, frente a la versión corriente «When God made me wander far from my father's house».
«Simply put, the Bible in many respects is just a photocopy of the Sumerian-Akkadian ‘Origin Stories' classics: the Atrahasis, Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«the term ‘Eden' is also found in Sumerian-Akkadian texts, where it appears as ‘E-Din', usually translated as ‘the house of the righteous'» — Biglino, entrecomillado; en la misma respuesta identifica a los Elohim bíblicos con «the Sumerian-Akkadian Anunna or Anunnaki».
«In truth, in the early stages, firstborns were sacrificed to him, and this is clearly stated in Ezekiel 20:25.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«this ‘serpent' was one of the Elohim who belonged to the faction of those who were hostile to, or even an enemy of, the Elohim who ruled in the Gan Eden.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The concept of original sin does not appear in Genesis.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Bible defines him as ‘one who constantly traveled with the Elohim.' Literally, he went back and forth with the Elohim until they took him away for good.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Enoc.
«In his annotations, the professor writes that in the Hebrew Book of Enoch there is talk of ‘as many as 23 types of divine chariots'.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando al profesor Moraldi.
«I use the term ‘alien' in a philologically neutral way, meaning an individual who is ‘different, distinct, separate' from us, but not necessarily» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase cierra «extraterrestrial», y en la misma página declara «I am not directly concerned with Ufology».
«The text of Isaiah for example, included in the Qumran scrolls, has about 250 variations in the Masoretic text.» — crítica textual asumida por la obra.
«Jerome translated the Bible in Latin on behalf of Pope Damasus in the 4th century CE» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«All of them are legitimate, all of them are interesting, provided that we do not to presume to exclude the textual, literal reading» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las lecturas simbólica, esotérica, gemátrica y cabalística.
«Does God exist? Who knows? The translator is very careful not to talk about it. But neither does he have the unshakable certainties of atheists.» — voz del narrador: la abstención sobre la existencia de Dios la formula él.
«perfect example of an executor of the orders of Yahweh: mass extermination and the destruction of other people's altars. The all too familiar biblical ‘script'.» — voz del narrador, leyendo la muerte de Qasem Soleimani (enero de 2020) sobre plantilla bíblica.
«We've now begun to call it by its name: the Great Reset, a universal reconfiguration involving political, social, and healthcare systems.» — voz del narrador.
«Just think of Rudolf Steiner. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, he was talking about hidden elites» — Biglino, entrecomillado, defendiéndose de la etiqueta de «conspiracy theorist».
«I don't make any judgements on whether these facts are correct or not. I simply want to tell the story as it is and make its content available to anyone.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la respuesta arranca «‘Like Rumor,' Biglino specifies», y por eso el verbatim empieza tras el inciso. Es la abstención expresa que gobierna todo el material de Rumor.
«The whole matter becomes even more complicated if the object of our research is not a poem about the Trojan War, but the most famous book of all time, the Big One.» — Cattaneo, como narrador, traslada a la Biblia el caso de Schliemann: si un poema tenido por literatura guardaba geografía verificable, la misma pregunta cabe para el libro más difundido.
«Why on earth, you wondered, should the Ancients have resorted to complicated trickery? Why take refuge in obscure symbolism, accessible only to the very few, to hide and veil God only knows what mysteries? At the time, those able to read and write were but a tiny minority. What would have been the point of playing hide-and-seek with words» — el narrador funda la lectura literal en un argumento de alfabetización: con tan pocos lectores, cifrar el texto no tendría a quién ocultárselo.
«It is a strange book as well, a collection with variable geometry.» — el narrador: lo que se nombra como la Biblia es una colección de contenido variable bajo un título que no cambia.
«For some, certain books that compose it are valid, while for others they are not.» — el narrador, sobre la divergencia de cánones entre confesiones como dato de partida del libro.
«This is unknown; the only certainties are negative ones.» — el narrador, contestando quién escribió los códices y en qué lengua: la obra arranca declarando que solo hay certezas por negación.
«We only do know that the version available today and present in practically all households is not the original one, the very first one.» — el narrador, sobre la distancia entre la Biblia doméstica y cualquier texto primero.
«Changes, corrections, additions. And subtractions: at least 11 books are missing from the count, even though they are mentioned in other texts of the corpus.» — el narrador cifra en once los libros que el propio corpus menciona y que no están en él.
«By many intermediaries, who often do not know the “native” version, the one penned in the Middle Eastern language of its writers» — el narrador: el libro más comentado se transmite por mediadores que no leen la lengua en que se escribió.
«And he gradually realized that the classical translations were inaccurate.» — el narrador, sobre cómo Biglino llega a su tesis desde el oficio de traducir y no desde una doctrina previa.
«Only one certainty: an unshakable faith in doubt.» — el narrador presenta la duda socrática como el único punto fijo del método que atribuye a su entrevistado.
«Beware, though: he does not sell truths.» — el narrador acota de entrada el estatuto de lo que sigue: hipótesis sugeridas, no verdades vendidas.
«The translator has looked for Him everywhere, but He just isn't there.» — el narrador formula en tercera persona el resultado negativo de la búsqueda, que Biglino solo declara de sí mismo.
«And we all know full well that science fiction movies are nothing less than anticipations of pre-science, regarding notions that we will all come to know later on.» — Biglino, en palabras que el libro entrecomilla, a propósito de que Skellig Michael sirviera de escenario a Star Wars.
«Tradition tells us that it was Archangel Michael himself who asked for it to be erected.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la Sacra di San Michele y el ermitaño ante quien Miguel se habría presentado.
«Michael “appears” in seven different places, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, always asking the same thing: that a devotional center be erected for him.» — el narrador describe el patrón que sostiene la llamada Línea de San Miguel: siete santuarios y una misma petición repetida.
«There is no trace, ever, of incorporeal beings.» — el narrador, resumiendo la lectura de Biglino: los ángeles del texto bíblico llegan, se dejan ver y se van, y en ningún lugar se describen como entidades sin cuerpo.
«He pierced his skull with a finger.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre lo que la tradición de Mont-Saint-Michel cuenta que Miguel le hizo al obispo remiso; lo aduce como muestra de un ser que actúa físicamente.
«Saint Michael's Mount was strategic for maritime communications off the coast of Cornwall, while Mont-Saint-Michel was decisive in disputes between the Duchies of Normandy and Brittany.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: los emplazamientos de la línea se explican por su valor de control militar y marítimo.
«Nothing different, one might say, from the physiognomy of the powerful characters whom the Bible calls by the name of Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, equipara al Miguel guerrero de las narraciones medievales con los Elohim del Antiguo Testamento.
«It is enough to just read the Bible as it is: and that's what we normally don’t do.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el reproche no va al texto sino a la costumbre de recibirlo contado por quien tampoco lo leyó.
«Nobody can know that. But the story of Genesis is similar to a great many other ‘origin stories’» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si esos relatos son fiables: se abstiene de responder por la fiabilidad y solo sostiene el parecido con otros relatos de origen.
«have you ever wondered why Archangel Michael is also called St. Michael? Normally, saints are just men like us, that is to say mere mortals, not archangels» — Biglino, entrecomillado, muestra su procedimiento: preguntar por incoherencias mínimas que la tradición arrastra sin examinar.
«The Lombards tended to identify the characteristics of Michael with those of Odin: a soldier and protector of warriors.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la asimilación lombarda del arcángel al dios guerrero.
«On Simi, the cult of Michael was established in a previous temple dedicated to Apollo, just as the sanctuary of Mont-Saint-Michel itself was erected on a cliff that the Celts had consecrated to their god, Belenus, also identified with Apollo» — el narrador, sobre la superposición del culto de Miguel a santuarios previos de Apolo y de Belenus.
«Let’s not forget that the Bible itself is a collection of books without any sources. We don’t know who wrote those codices, which tradition then attributes to this or that author» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la autoría de los libros bíblicos es atribución de la tradición y no dato del texto, y de ahí que admita la analogía como recurso.
«But despite all this, the volume was permitted to continue to be called the ‘Book of Isaiah’, as if it were the work of a single author, always the same one: the greatest of the Old Testament prophets.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el narrador acaba de exponer la partición del libro en Isaías, Deutero-Isaías y Trito-Isaías.
«His name literally means “He who is like an El”» — el narrador, sobre Mi-ka-el: el nombre del arcángel lleva dentro la raíz El, la misma que la obra rastrea en Elohim y en el topónimo del Carmelo.
«The name means ‘garden, vineyard’ or even ‘Garden of an El’» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el Carmelo, extremo meridional de la línea.
«It is mentioned in Egyptian texts of the fourteenth century BCE, was conquered by the Pharaoh Thutmosis III and later visited by Pythagoras» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la antigüedad documentada del monte Carmelo; la grafía Thutmosis va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Mind you, these have been dated to over 175,000 years before Christ» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre restos humanos hallados en el Carmelo y atribuidos a Homo sapiens; añade que, de pertenecer a esa especie, obligarían a reescribir lo que se cree saber del origen humano.
«For me, this would not be a surprise, considering what the Bible says in terms of what they – the Elohim – did in terms of genetic experimentation to ‘make’ us. I say this, of course, still ‘pretending’ that the Bible is telling the truth.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: enuncia la fabricación genética de la especie por los Elohim y en la misma frase declara que lo dice fingiendo que la Biblia dice verdad.
«what is overturned is not the Bible but its theological interpretation, often contrived and completely disconnected from the textuality of the codices» — el narrador enuncia la tesis del capítulo: lo que la obra invierte es la lectura teológica, no el texto.
«Elijah was in close contact with the Elohim who, in the end – according to the Bible – ‘took him away’ with them» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Elías; en la misma respuesta pone junto a él a Enoc y a Moisés.
«Along with Moses, according to the Gospel texts, Elijah himself would have appeared in front of Jesus, when, shortly before being arrested, the Christian Messiah experienced what we know as his ‘transfiguration’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Technically, two undead, both ‘ascended’ with the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Moisés y Elías en el episodio de la transfiguración.
«An epidemic of uncertain origins. Not that it appeared, at least at the beginning, to be a truly global threat.» — el narrador abre el capítulo con 2020 y la epidemia, y de ahí pasa al uso corriente de la palabra apocalipsis.
«A controversial character to be sure, but one of the highest order and a leading figure in the unstable theater of the Middle East, which for some time now has been bloodied by the ISIS cutthroats.» — el narrador, sobre Qasem Soleimani, muerto en Bagdad el 3 de enero de 2020.
«I deal with the Bible. I’m happy to speak about that, but nothing else, because I don’t like to talk publicly about things that I don’t know equally well» — Biglino, entrecomillado: acota su competencia a la Biblia y se desmarca de opinar sobre la actualidad que el narrador acaba de exponer.
«Historians admit it openly: those who study the past are not necessarily better able to understand the present, let alone predict the future.» — el narrador.
«systems of power tend to exercise tight control over our knowledge about the past» — Biglino, entrecomillado dentro de la prosa del narrador: de ahí que sostenga que conocer el pasado en su concreción importa para el presente.
«It’s curious: a historian is willing to change his or her mind if documents emerge that contradict some previously established historiographical notions.» — el narrador contrapone el oficio del historiador, revisable ante documentos nuevos, a la lectura de fe.
«Those who transform the Bible into a text upon which to base their faith, however, consider it infallible.» — el narrador.
«The absurd thing is that, while the Bible (i.e., the copy) is claimed to be an expression of a sort of historical truth inspired by God, the Sumerian texts (the original) are thought to be nothing more than fables, just myths and legends.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: reprocha que se tenga por verdad histórica a la copia y por mito a lo que él considera el original sumerio-acadio.
«We are talking essentially about a war story, describing terrifying confrontations. Fratricidal wars, conflicts among relatives. Yahweh regularly commands the people belonging to him – the sons of Jacob/Israel – to exterminate their adversaries. They all share the same blood, they are neighbors, direct descendants of Abraham or in any case of his family of origin. In a word, they are cousins. And Yahweh’s provisions are cruel: take no prisoners, kill everyone. Neither more nor less than ISIS did» — Biglino, entrecomillado: lo que la lectura literal le devuelve es una crónica de guerra entre parientes, y la comparación con el Estado Islámico la hace él.
«I know, the comparison can be off-putting. But that is exactly what is written in the Bible» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sosteniendo la comparación anterior.
«Those are pages are so unsettling that they are never read publicly.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los pasajes de exterminio; la duplicación de are va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«I certainly did not discover it. I want to reiterate that: I haven’t ‘discovered’ anything at all» — Biglino, entrecomillado, rehúsa el papel de descubridor: sostiene que solo lee lo que está impreso.
«Again, we don’t know. In some cases, there are confirmations from chronological comparisons that can be cross-referenced with historical sources.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si los relatos son auténticos: admite cotejo cronológico en algunos casos y ninguna garantía en los demás.
«You realize that this set of books recounts something very precise: the appearance of superior, non-human beings who genetically ‘manufactured’ Homo sapiens» — Biglino, entrecomillado, respondiendo qué pasa si uno finge que el texto dice verdad literal.
«Impossible to say. The Bible does not specify that. At most, we can define them as ‘aliens’, but in the more strictly technical sense of the word: namely, individuals who are different and distinct from us» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta directa de si eran extraterrestres: se abstiene y reduce el término a su acepción de distinto.
«Exactly. The biblical texts describe him with these words: male and warrior.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Yahweh; añade que su interés no es la humanidad entera sino los descendientes de Jacob-Israel.
«It is to them that this Yahweh warrior character makes a solemn promise: he would give them a vast dominion which would extend from the Nile to the Euphrates Valley, and even beyond.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; de esa promesa deriva el mapa que el libro llama Greater Israel.
«Sinai, Golan, the West Bank. These are the only incursions since 1948.» — el narrador, midiendo la promesa territorial contra la historia posterior a 1948.
«It is a fact: only after Auschwitz were the Jews granted the historical right to a State.» — el narrador.
«If I were Jewish, I would first of all concern myself with understanding why, already at the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, the great Anglo-Saxon newspapers repeatedly wrote that ‘six million Jews’ were about to be killed in Europe» — Biglino, entrecomillado; formula una pregunta sobre la prensa de la época, no sobre los hechos.
«Let me be very, very clear on this point: I am not remotely questioning the facts of what happened and the appalling extermination perpetrated in the Nazi concentration camps.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la acotación con que él mismo delimita la pregunta anterior, y sin la cual esa pregunta queda falseada.
«In the Old Testament, the prophecies are all made ex post facto, without exception: the ‘prophesied’ events, in reality, had already occurred.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: su regla general sobre la profecía bíblica, que le sirve después para Isaías 7 y para Daniel.
«Some argue, in fact, that based on this count, the Bible even contains the exact date of the return to Israel – 1948 – and this only after the death of those unfortunate 6 million Jews» — el narrador expone el cómputo gemátrico atribuido a otros, en tercera persona y sin suscribirlo.
«This is a Cabalistic volume from medieval times, composed in Spain by Sephardic Jews.» — el narrador sobre el Sefer ha Zohar; añade que se discute si su arameo literario buscaba aparentar más siglos.
«It’s a world of extraordinary openness. In Judaism, there is room for everyone. It runs from absolute orthodoxy to pure atheism. In rabbinic schools, people are taught not to trust any single source» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la cultura judía y su método de contraste de fuentes.
«This is exactly the opposite of what has always been done with the Bible in the Christian tradition. Dogma intervenes, preventing the development of deeper knowledge and understanding. Dogma, or a category of mystery, simply does not exist in the Bible» — Biglino, entrecomillado: sostiene que el misterio no está en el texto sino que se introduce para sostener una traducción incorrecta.
«The theological interpretation of that book, which is based on traditions that are erroneous or even completely fabricated, serves as the foundation for all the world’s great monotheistic religions, which in turn form the basis of the power structures that still govern the world today.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la cadena que va del error de traducción al poder político es la tesis mayor del libro.
«Let me emphasize that the Old Testament is a beautiful book, as long as it is read honestly, as it was actually written.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; su reproche no cae sobre el Antiguo Testamento sino sobre su lectura.
«I have never claimed to be certain that what the Bible says is true. My ideas are still only hypotheses, albeit very carefully argued and documented ones» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el estatuto que él mismo le da a todo lo anterior.
«We don’t even know who wrote the Bible. It is not known when it was written, nor in what language. At the time of Moses, Hebrew did not even exist as a language» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Bible is continuously made to say what it does not say, what it has never said.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«A curious destiny: theology “spiritualizes” a text that has nothing spiritual about it, and then uses it improperly as a formidable instrument of domination» — el narrador formula en su propia voz el resumen de la tesis, que Biglino confirma acto seguido.
«And it has worked very well, in this sense, for over two thousand years. But now seems that fragments of truth are gradually emerging» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la elisión de it en now seems va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«That book seems essentially directed to the earliest Christian communities. It is a ‘political’ text, with precise instructions on how to beware of the adversary» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el Apocalipsis: lo lee como escrito de circunstancia y no como anuncio del fin del tiempo.
«Not at all. The enemy referred to seems to be Lucius Domitius Enobarbus, the emperor Nero.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si el adversario es Satanás; la grafía Enobarbus por Ahenobarbus va tal cual.
«The Apocalypse seems to be a text written in code for the nascent Christian Churches.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la escritura cifrada serviría para defenderse de la persecución imperial.
«the name Nero (of which 666 is the numerical transcription) is simply indicated as Nero» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las monedas latinas: de ahí saca la lectura gemátrica del número de la bestia.
«In papyri other than the one used for the preparation of the version of the Apocalypse that was officially included as Canon, there are different numbers. In papyrus number 115, by Ossirincus – and elsewhere as well – the number 616 is found, and in yet other papyri it is the number 665» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las variantes numéricas del texto; la grafía Ossirincus por Oxirrinco va tal cual.
«Irenaeus of Lyons, who defined the Canon of the New Testament, believed that this was an error of the copyists. In fact, though, the number might be derived from a Latin re-reading of the number 666» — Biglino, entrecomillado, contra la explicación por error de copista.
«While the expression “Nero” appears on Roman coins written in Latin, things change for the coins with the wording in Greek: there the emperor becomes “Neron”» — el narrador da el dato numismático sobre el que se apoya el cómputo.
«That final N has a value of 50, the precise difference between 616 and 666, which would indicate that the ‘number of the beast’ most likely does indeed refer to Nero.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la diferencia entre las dos cifras le sirve de prueba, y la formula como probabilidad.
«The number 616 could be the numerical transcription of the name Caligula, who was emperor before Nero.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ofrece una segunda lectura posible y no elige entre las dos.
«In both instances, that number seems to refer to Roman emperors,» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la frase sigue en la plana siguiente con considered to be the true enemies of Early Christianity.
«The Apocalypse of John seems to me to contain the messianic hopes of those times, when there was a sense of the imminent advent and establishment of the New Kingdom, where the righteous would be saved.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Those messianic expectations were already expressed by Jesus, who presented them as imminent, indeed as already begun, like the establishment of the New Kingdom.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; añade que el Reino se esperaba dentro de esa misma generación.
«This is not how things went.» — el narrador, sobre la expectativa mesiánica incumplida; enseguida la empareja con la promesa del Gran Israel.
«Which is the conspiracy theorist? The one who sees secret plots everywhere or the one actually hatching them» — el narrador abre el capítulo invirtiendo la etiqueta, y de ahí la deriva a Maquiavelo y al consejo del príncipe que oculta sus intenciones.
«This is why it is easy for those in control of the official narrative to dismiss as a “conspiracy theorist” even those who are seriously investigating murky matters, ones that are certainly not incontrovertibly explained by the official version provided.» — el narrador: la etiqueta funciona como descarte anticipado de una investigación.
«But do professional historians recognize the existence of conspiracies? Of course they do. And they do so based on precise documents, long protected by confidentiality and later declassified» — el narrador apoya el argumento en el oficio historiográfico y en la desclasificación de documentos.
«the American superpower itself admitted that no North Vietnamese vessel had ever fired on the USS Maddox, whose Commander in 1964 had claimed to be the victim of an attack» — el narrador, sobre el golfo de Tonkín como caso documentado de versión oficial desmentida después.
«Kennedy, Hunt revealed, had been killed on the order of what is now often referred to as the “Deep State”» — el narrador, sobre la confesión grabada que atribuye a Howard Hunt en 2007.
«“Murder Most Foul”, in an encrypted yet easily decipherable way, brings the true architects of the plot into focus.» — el narrador lee la canción de Bob Dylan de 2020 como crónica cifrada del asesinato de Dallas.
«I know very well that talking about certain issues can lead to being categorized as a so-called ‘conspiracy theorist’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, anticipa la objeción antes de que se la hagan.
«‘Conspiracy theorist’ has come to indicate those who discern plots, those who reveal plots, or, in a derogatory way, those who see plots everywhere» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el desplazamiento del término: antes nombraba a quien tramaba, ahora a quien señala.
«There are other people whom I can’t imagine being included in the category of conspiracy theorists, people who have, however, made statements that seem typical of conspiracy theories» — Biglino, entrecomillado, presentando a Viganò y a Fanzaga.
«That expression is not typical of the conspiracist. It has been used by important institutions such as the UN and the World Economic Forum in Davos.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: apoya el uso del término Great Reset en quién lo acuñó y lo emplea, no en quién lo denuncia.
«The management of history is fundamental for those who want to govern us» — Biglino, entrecomillado; es la bisagra con que el libro pasa de la actualidad a la filología bíblica.
«For Orwell, the manipulation of the past also has the purpose of safeguarding the infallibility of power, which in his novel is embodied by the single-party Big Brother» — Biglino, entrecomillado, leyendo 1984 como descripción de un mecanismo, no como profecía.
«In so doing, they isolate anyone who dares to doubt what is being told about the past, as if he or she were committing a crime of treason.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el costo de dudar de la versión recibida.
«The same thing is true for ancient texts, and it is true for the construction of religions, which are based on a certain dogmatic interpretation of the writings from which they are derived, an interpretation from which one must not deviate.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: traslada el mecanismo del control del pasado a la construcción de las religiones.
«Not at all. The seeds of a certain conception of humanity are already very present in the Bible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si eso es un asunto moderno.
«In his Praeparatio evangelica, says Biglino, Eusebio “writes things that help us understand the conditions our culture has lived in for centuries and perhaps even for millennia.”» — Biglino, entrecomillado dentro de la prosa del narrador; la grafía Eusebio junto a Eusebius va tal cual.
«Th situation we are analyzing here today, in the present, actually has very ancient roots and motivations.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la Th sin e va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«We are therefore talking about some 3200 years ago.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, fechando así al sacerdote fenicio Sanjuniatón, a quien llega por Filón de Biblos y por Eusebio.
«Anyone dealing with biblical themes,” says Biglino, “knows very well how much allegories and metaphors are used to interpret the Bible and make it say things that the Bible does not say» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la alegoría no es para él un modo de leer sino el instrumento con que se desplaza lo escrito.
«this was a technique used even back then and confirmed to us by someone as unlikely as a Father of the Church, Eusebius of Caesarea» — Biglino, entrecomillado, subrayando que su testigo contra la alegoría es un Padre de la Iglesia.
«And this is still being done today, Biglino remarks. It happens every time it is claimed that, in reality, the ancients symbolically interpreted cosmic phenomena» — el narrador recoge la aplicación al presente que Biglino hace de la denuncia antigua.
«Knowledge of the past must necessarily be reserved for the very few. The masses must be given an interpretation that is useful to power.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre lo que lee en la noticia de los libros secretos del templo de Amón.
«Those priests, Biglino stresses to avoid any misunderstanding, were not like those of today. They did not have to “lead souls towards God. They were the caste that looked after the (material) interests of the so-called gods.» — Biglino, entrecomillado dentro de la prosa del narrador: el sacerdocio antiguo se describe como administración material de los intereses de los dioses.
«Eusebius wrote between the third and fourth centuries CE, and Philo of Byblos between the first and second centuries, while Sanchuniaton is from the twelfth century BCE.» — el narrador fija la cronología de la cadena de transmisión sobre la que el capítulo se apoya.
«This is not a conspiracy but rather a technique widely used to ‘manage’ the past, control the present and plan for the future.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, rehúsa expresamente la palabra conspiración para lo que describe.
«This is a real shame, Biglino observes, since the facts as narrated in the original story are more convincing. They are even more fascinating than the allegories with which we tried to cloud them» — el narrador recoge el juicio de Biglino sobre la sustitución del relato por la fábula.
«Despite the worldwide ecological alarm insistently reiterated in recent years, it is as though the Earth only needed a handful of days to get set to rights.» — el narrador, sobre la limpieza atmosférica que sigue al confinamiento de la primavera de 2020.
«Is it legitimate to suspect that someone might periodically be secretly manipulating certain events to send out messages intended to profoundly transform society» — el narrador plantea la sospecha como pregunta, no como afirmación.
«Mauro Biglino’s answer is very clear: this trend is not just a contemporary one. Just look at certain passages of Exodus or Deuteronomy» — el narrador enuncia la operación que estructura el libro entero: pasar del control contemporáneo a los textos del Antiguo Testamento por paralelismo.
«This is not that much different, however, from what was proposed in distant 1968 by a particularly influential cenacle like the one of the “Rome Club”, founded by the Italian manager Aurelio Peccei» — el narrador emparenta la Agenda 2030 con el informe del Club de Roma.
«Viganò too mentions the possibility of arriving at a sort of ‘universal salary’, in exchange for the transferring of part of our freedoms.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando a su vez a Viganò sobre la renta universal.
«This experiment is designed to verify the degree of satisfaction that people who are maintained by the state can feel.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el ensayo alemán de ingreso garantizado.
«It is an experiment that has already been attempted in Canada, then in Finland and that is now starting in Germany, to specific ends» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«seen as a sort of herd, cattle, an anonymous group, kept in farms whose shapes and sizes can vary according to the objectives of those who govern them» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la imagen del rebaño es suya, y con ella cruza del presente al texto bíblico.
«In the Bible, the Elohim who ‘made’ humanity considered us more or less like a particularly evolved animal species (which we are, technically), an animal species that could be used for their needs as it had been rendered capable of understanding and carrying out orders of various degrees of complexity, especially the more the species was perfected by them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el vínculo entre Elohim y humanidad se lee como relación de utilidad, no de amor ni de culto.
«I am merely interested in detecting the seeds of this conception of humanity, understood as a mass of individuals over which certain minds (who consider themselves elevated, or perhaps they really are) believe they have the right to govern at their pleasure» — Biglino, entrecomillado, acota qué busca en el texto: la semilla de una concepción, no una denuncia de actualidad.
«this also implies a very low consideration of ourselves. It means we are being commodified, we are property, subjects simply capable of producing wealth for them, if properly directed» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Already in this passage, the scholar points out, “the concept of an elite is introduced”, one inserted amongst humanity in a dominant position» — el narrador recoge la lectura que Biglino hace de Deuteronomio 15.
«we humans must be considered as mere commodities: tools to be used» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Bible often mentions censuses. Not being at all omniscient, Yahweh needed to count conduct censuses of his population to verify their numbers. And, above all, Yahweh needed to know how many viable males he could count on to wage his wars of conquest» — Biglino, entrecomillado: del censo deduce un jefe que ignora cuántos son los suyos; la duplicación count conduct va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The ‘boss’ is saying, ‘The moment I count you, pay me; otherwise I’ll hit you with a plague.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, parafraseando Éxodo 30 en boca del personaje.
«It’s a hard concept to digest: I will count you amongst my own, and you will pay me, because your life is mine. You can redeem it by paying for it, and I – the alleged spiritual, transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent God – shall enrich myself with your silver» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el medio siclo de rescate por cabeza.
«In this case, Biglino comments, “we reach a frightening level of the commodification of people» — el narrador, sobre los primogénitos reservados a Yahweh y redimibles con dinero.
«If this isn’t commodification, then tell me what it is. This is a specific monetary value given to people who are treated and traded as commodities.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, tras la tarifa de Levítico 27 en siclos por edad y sexo.
«he always does so concerning his own people, the Israelites, whom he clearly distinguished from the rest of humankind» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la acotación con que responde a la objeción de que Yahweh dice otras cosas en otros lugares.
«That is: if you took something, from the goods set aside for Yahweh, you must return the equivalent of the value, plus 20%» — el narrador, glosando Levítico 5.
«So ‘sacred things’ are completely commodified, and with the addition of a VAT.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el recargo de un quinto lo lee como un impuesto al valor agregado antiguo.
«Whoever inadvertently has eaten a sacred thing must repay the value of that sacred thing to the priest, plus one fifth of it.» — Levítico 23 en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«If the consecrator wants to redeem his house, add one-fifth of the sum valued, and the house will be his.» — Levítico 27 en la versión que el libro reproduce: el mismo recargo aplicado a un inmueble.
«All this,” Biglino summarizes, “leads us to understand how a system starts in antiquity (the Bible) and is by theorized about by important political families like Rumor’s.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la construcción is by theorized about va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Total control over society imposed via a specific and artificially fabricated narrative: this is what an author of 1200 BCE says» — el narrador cierra el círculo con Sanjuniatón.
«This system is based on the control over the past, and through the management of knowledge of this past, it manages the present and plans the future.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«By managing and knowledge of the past, I guarantee and document my own infallibility» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la infalibilidad es para él el rendimiento del control del pasado; la construcción managing and knowledge va tal cual.
«Those who try to question any of it, even if with very well researched evidence and documents, is ostracized and (understandably) attacked, in every possible way.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el costo que él mismo dice haber pagado desde 2010.
«Let’s be clear here: Mauro Biglino does not deal with the Great Reset at all» — el narrador deslinda expresamente a su entrevistado del asunto que él acaba de exponer durante tres capítulos.
«Nothing at all, believe me. Sometimes, in fact, I feel like I have the most stupid ‘trade’ in the world» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de qué hizo de sensacional.
«Reading the Bible. As it is. There is no need to invent anything» — Biglino, entrecomillado, nombrando así ese oficio.
«I control the past, and by managing knowledge of the past I can manage the present and plan the future.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase abre el capítulo sobre el Génesis.
«Beware, say the ecologists: only climate change “deniers” can truly believe that Greenland was actually “green” at some point and benefited from a mild climate.» — el narrador consigna también la explicación contraria, que atribuye el nombre a un reclamo de Erik el Rojo.
«On the other hand, there is also no lack of those who point out that Renaissance maps already reproduce the geography of Antarctica and do so, amazingly, with an astonishing degree of detail.» — el narrador, en tercera persona y sin firmar la afirmación.
«And kindly note that the Antarctic continent reproduced by Leonardo da Vinci is completely free of ice» — el narrador; la atribución del mapa a Leonardo queda pendiente de cotejo.
«It was only in 2014 that some geophysicists became convinced that the Earth had quite literally been engulfed by catastrophic cometary rains» — el narrador; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente fechando el episodio hace unos 12 000 años.
«The discovery: we have no idea just how much the Bible – theoretically a religious text – conditions, without us being aware of it, fundamental elements of our civic life.» — el narrador, sobre lo que el libro escrito con Lorena Forni sostiene: la ley civil hereda del texto sin saberlo.
«There is no trace, among those verses, of any ethics that compare to ours.» — el narrador.
«Nor is there any notion of spirituality to be found – a concept, moreover, that is foreign even to ancient Jewish culture, which gave no thought at all to the possibility of life after death.» — el narrador; la ausencia de vida después de la muerte en la cultura judía antigua es premisa de todo el argumento posterior.
«Among the most striking phrases uttered in that auditorium was the following: it is not at all clear which passage of the Bible the Apostle Paul was drawing from to arrive at the idea of original sin.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, recogiendo lo dicho en el simposio de Milán de 2016 ante seiscientas personas.
«These,” he says, “are still just hypotheses, though rigorously based, of course, on ancient Hebrew textuality.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, vuelve a fijar el estatuto de lo que sostiene.
«If believers still maintain that this book tells us about a God who is almighty and eternal, a God who created the heavens and the Earth from nothing, they are wrong. Without denying the possibility of the existence of a divine, transcendent creator, it must be noted that in that book, it is only written, literally, that several beings called Elohim reorganized a certain portion of territory, separating the waters from cultivatable land. This might sound like the construction of a dam» — el narrador: la negación recae sobre lo que el libro dice, no sobre la existencia de un creador, y esa distinción va dentro de la misma frase.
«Ancient languages have always fascinated me, right from my early school years» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el griego y el latín del bachillerato.
«Actually, while I was studying Hebrew, I was determined to learn Chinese as well» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Ancient Hebrew had always fascinated me. I had approached it in various ways, beginning to read the Old Testament in the 1980s» — Biglino, entrecomillado; añade que la Comunidad Judía de Turín le puso un maestro.
«I used a pencil to write – in Hebrew – the whole Book of Genesis» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el ejercicio con que empezó.
«One line in Hebrew, another below it with the pronunciation, and then a third line with the literal translation by the student. The result: 400 pages.» — el narrador describe el formato interlineal de aquel cuaderno.
«Little did he know that destiny was lurking in chapter 33, verse 16.» — el narrador, sobre el versículo del Éxodo donde Biglino dice haber hallado la errata.
«The first word to the right was the term “elai”. Most likely a typo, resulting from the preceding verse (where ‘elai’, with the addition of the ending ‘vav’ means ‘to him’). The term ‘jiwwada’ (‘it shall be known’) is what should have been there» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la errata concreta con que empieza su relación con la editorial.
«They responded to me surprisingly quickly, and they were very polite and accessible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In that report I pointed out, for example, that in a certain passage there had been an inversion in the translation.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el informe que envió al terminar el Éxodo.
«At one point there was a ‘shin’ instead of a ‘lamed’» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el tipo de observación que hacía, letra por letra.
«I took four sheets of that pencil-written Genesis I had written, made photocopies, folded them, put them in an envelope and sent them off with my heart pounding in my chest» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre cómo llegó su Génesis a manos de la editorial.
«They had to check first that, in addition to Hebrew, I also knew Greek and Latin, as comparisons with those two languages are indispensable» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la verificación previa al primer contrato.
«Once it was verified that I knew how to do a whole variety of things, they gave me my first translation contract for the so-called Five Meghillot, the five books of the Old Testament» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Five Meghillot were now finished, and a new contract followed three years later.» — el narrador; el nuevo encargo eran los doce libros de los Profetas Menores.
«Of course, big publishing houses always maintain the contractual power to intervene in the work of their collaborators» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el poder de aprobación de la editorial.
«It was up to them to decide whether my translation was acceptable, whether they liked it or not.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, glosando la cláusula de aprobación del contrato.
«I also had to stay faithful to the original.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la obligación contractual iba en las dos direcciones.
«Regarding the volumes we worked on together, while I was doing my editorial work for them, the term ‘Elohim’ was left that way in Italian as well. They did not translate it as the word ‘God’» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el aval que reclama no es doctrinal sino de práctica editorial.
«Another controversial term, Ruach, is very often rendered as “Spirit”, thus introducing the concept of transcendence into the Bible» — el narrador: la traducción es el punto por donde entra la trascendencia al texto.
«If the Ruach is not “the Spirit” and the Kavod is not “the glory”, then what are they? And above all, if Yahweh is not God, then… who is he» — el narrador plantea como preguntas abiertas lo que el resto del libro va a tratar.
«The mere fact that those words were not translated, even then, was a source of great satisfaction for me, because, in fact, I told myself that those terms cannot and should not be translated.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«All attempted translations are absolute fabrications, and it is a pleasure to see that, even to this day, those particular term remain untranslated.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el singular term va tal como lo imprime la fuente.
«A hypothesis began to form: what if that story were consistent? What if it were possible to deduce, from the context, the true identity of those figures in the Bible and the real function of some of those untranslatable “accessories”» — el narrador describe el paso del oficio filológico a la hipótesis: la identidad se deduciría del contexto.
«The “Ruach” for example – a sort of spaceship, perhaps? And the Kavod? A war machine? A fighter jet of some kind» — el narrador formula las dos identificaciones como preguntas suyas, no como afirmaciones de Biglino.
«So he started working and translated those two biblical texts as well, bringing the total number of books of the Old Testament edited for the Catholic publishing house to nineteen.» — el narrador da la cifra de diecinueve libros sobre la que se apoya la autoridad que la obra reclama.
«I completely understand Edizioni San Paolo. After that first book written on my own, they could no longer accept that my translations continue to be part of the collections of a publishing house like theirs, a Catholic one.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sin reproche a la editorial que dejó de publicarlo.
«I have to say that our relationship was a cordial one, even on a human level, especially with Don Beretta» — Biglino, entrecomillado, diez años después de la ruptura.
«Although they never published my last two works, they were kind enough to pay me for them. They could very well have said, ‘We don’t like them,’ and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. But they were unfailingly fair to the end» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Literally: “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim veet ha’arets.” A memorable sentence, regularly translated as follows: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth» — el narrador pone el hebreo y la traducción corriente una junto a otra antes de discutirla.
«For now, it is better to leave out the Gnostic Gospel of John, conventionally attributed to the disciple “beloved of Jesus”, yet actually written – no one knows by whom – in the Hellenic language at least one hundred years after the events in Jerusalem» — el narrador, sobre el En arché de Juan; la atribución tradicional se consigna como convención.
«That was an era in which the dominant Greek culture, through Platonism, had introduced the notion of metaphysical transcendence, which conversely was completely absent in the biblical tradition» — el narrador: la trascendencia metafísica sería un préstamo griego y no un contenido del hebreo.
«And what if, in that context, “Bereshit” only meant at the beginning of this story, the one we are now going to tell? So, not a universal history of “creation”, but only that of our little group of people» — el narrador propone leer el comienzo como el de un relato particular, no el del universo.
«would they have veiled their truths, delving into the depths of some cryptic language, when they lived in a largely illiterate society. Wouldn’t it make more sense to think that their primal focus was simply to preserve the memory of events that had actually taken place» — Biglino, entrecomillado: repite en su voz el argumento de alfabetización con que el libro funda la lectura literal.
«It can have different meanings, as reported by all major dictionaries. It can mean to form, to choose, to divide.» — el narrador, sobre el abanico de acepciones del verbo bara según los diccionarios.
«But in no case whatsoever can ‘bara’ mean the creation of something out» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con of nothing.
«If Genesis isn’t lying, then it was the much later historical manipulation of a theological matrix, based on distorting translations, that has it saying something else.» — el narrador.
«He admits, of course, that in several places we find possible exaggerations, especially concerning the deeds of figures that the text is celebrating.» — el narrador registra el límite que Biglino se pone: hay exageración donde el texto celebra a alguien.
«The Bible is almost always explicitly clear, calling a spade a spade.» — el narrador.
«And yet, could an attentive eye have spotted, even then, in the 80s, the very first signs of an invisible project? Were the early seeds of what today even a high prelate like Monsignor Viganò calls the Great Reset already being planted» — el narrador, tras un repaso de los años ochenta que va de Reagan y Gorbachov a Palme, Sankara y Tiananmen; lo plantea en interrogativo.
«Those accustomed to observe history from afar know that, ultimately, Western democracy is but a system in its early infancy, or little more.» — el narrador; de ahí pasa al patrón que dice constante, el dominio de los pocos sobre los muchos.
«According to Saba Sardi, the institution of the first primitive religions can also be dated back to this time. They were the instrument of power used by the new leaders, the King-Priests, to exercise their dominion over others, holding strategic information (on agricultural practices, for example). And they did so as a monopoly, without sharing information with the community of neo-subjects destined to work, defend or conquer land» — el narrador recoge de Saba Sardi el origen de la religión como monopolio de información estratégica en el Neolítico.
«Some of these, such as the discovery of the great Turkish site of Göbekli Tepe, near the Syrian border, seem to be forcing scientists to push the date of the adoption of agriculture back substantially. Göbekli Tepe dates back almost 12,000 years.» — el narrador, sobre el yacimiento que el libro usa para desplazar la cronología de la agricultura.
«The river of the ever-mysterious Sumerians, a civilization that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, already perfectly formed and possessing very advanced skills.» — el narrador; la aparición súbita de Sumeria es la premisa que el capítulo va a explicar.
«Even paleontologists confess that there are no intermediate steps between edible wheat and its prehistoric ancestor, wild spelt.» — el narrador, sobre el trigo, dentro de la exposición de la tesis de Sitchin.
«If we consider that Genesis was written during a historical exile, the so-called Babylonian captivity or shortly thereafter, between the 7th and 6th centuries BCE» — el narrador data el Génesis en el exilio y de ahí deriva su parentesco con los relatos del Éufrates.
«is that history has to be re-written. For years there has been an ongoing discussion on the need, for example, to re-date the time of the construction of the great Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx of the Giza plateau. All this will be defined sooner or later. But beyond whatever the conclusion of this process may be, the fact remains that, even now, archeology is bringing to light many elements that force us to re-write history, at least as it has been presented to us so far.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase empieza en la fuente con One of my few certain convictions.
«Of course. That discovery is one of those undeniable facts. Its location in time compels us to re-think, clearly and with no uncertainty, the dating of the origin of these civilizations, connected above all to the Egyptian pyramids and the Sumerian-Akkadian constructions.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Göbekli Tepe.
«Biglino suggests caution: the term “Eden” indicates a rather precise geographical location, a vast region located between Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.» — el narrador: la cautela de Biglino consiste en leer Edén como topónimo y no como estado.
«And by “righteous”, the scholar specifies, they obviously meant “those of the lineage of the Commanders, meaning the biblical Elohim, who in fact correspond to the Sumerian-Akkadian Anunna or Anunnaki.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la identificación de los Elohim con los Anunna es suya y la funda en el término E-Din.
«That is the result of a subsequent passage through various linguistic forms: the Iranian language refers to “pairidaeza”, a fenced and protected place. From this term we move on to the Greek “paradeisos”, which the Greek authors employed to indicate those closed, fenced and protected gardens of the lords of Babylon.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre cómo un jardín cercado acaba llamándose paraíso.
«From the Greek ‘paradeisos’ we arrived at the ‘paradisus’ of the Latin Vulgate, to then arrive at the point of translating the term into the so-called ‘vulgar languages’ as ‘paradise’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, cerrando la cadena léxica.
«So the Bible is telling us about one of the Gans existing on the planet,” confirms Biglino, “but we can imagine the existence of several others.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el Gan del Génesis sería uno entre varios.
«The first one was probably located in the center of Africa, or in the southernmost latitudes of the black continent, where the first genetic experiments to manufacture Homo sapiens took place.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la reserva probably dentro de la propia frase.
«Another Gan was probably located in central America, while yet another one must have been in the Far East. This might have been located at the birthplace of the great Vedic religion, which essentially recounts the same concept of the ‘manufacturing’ of mankind.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, extiende el esquema a los Vedas.
«We could, in fact, speculate about an experiment that may have been conducted all over the planet, an experiment from which Homo sapiens would have emerged as the final product. First made in central-southern Africa and then, probably, further perfected in the Middle East.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el verbo con que él mismo califica esto es especular.
«Here we realize that, just as with the biblical Gan Eden, the garden of Alcinous was a place where a special cultivation of vegetables and fruit trees was conducted, one which was carried out with no interruption throughout the year.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el jardín de la Odisea.
«Yes, this garden of the Odyssey as well is enclosed, and it, too, is irrigated by waterways.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el cercado y el riego son los rasgos que le sirven de puente entre los dos relatos.
«He was of divine lineage, so just like the Adamites he possessed part of the genetic heritage deriving from this group of ‘divinities’. Alcinous was a descendant of Poseidon, the so-called ‘God of the Sea’, corresponding to the Lord of the Waters (or of the ‘lower parts’), or the southern regions of the planet. The Sumerian-Akkadians knew this figure by the name of Enki.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, identifica a Poseidón con Enki y al Alcínoo homérico con la línea de los Adamitas.
«The Sumerian Enki and the Greek Poseidon, Biglino says, really» — el narrador; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con can be the same figure.
«Biglino has already spoken clearly on the biblical Mikael, the archangel Michael of the Christians, a kind of waltz of ancient divinities: Odin, Belenus and Apollo himself.» — el narrador nombra el procedimiento: un mismo personaje bajo nombres distintos según la región.
«Through a careful reading of the Homeric poems,” says the author, “we can see how, when we talk about the so-called divinities, the text is in fact referring to figures that can be superimposed on the biblical heroes. They have the same technology, the same attitudes, the same needs.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: lo que empareja a los dos corpus no es el estilo sino la tecnología y las necesidades de sus personajes.
«Not bad as a first performance by our famous ‘God of love’, who, religion tells us, loves his creatures unconditionally. At the first little mistake, he expelled them both from Eden, forcing them into an existence of suffering, with an ‘expiration date’, concluding in death.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el narrador aclara enseguida que está bromeando.
«Because the one mentioned in Genesis was certainly not ‘God’, nor were Adam and Eve our ancestors, and the aforementioned snake was certainly not a reptile. In the Talmud, it is even written that he was originally gifted with limbs. And by the way, there was never any ‘apple’ mentioned in those verses» — Biglino, entrecomillado: enumera de un tiro las cuatro identificaciones que rechaza.
«The infamous apple eaten by Eve doesn’t exist in the Hebrew Bible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus, known as Saint Jerome, was a Roman biblicist, translator, theologian and Christian monk. A Church Father, and a Doctor of the Church as well, he translated part of the Old Testament into Latin, but using the text that had been re-written in Greek by the Jews of the colony of Elephantine in Egypt.» — el narrador; la atribución de la versión griega a la colonia de Elefantina queda pendiente de cotejo.
«Writing about the Tree of Good and Evil, Jerome used the Latin term ‘malum’, which has a double meaning: it can mean both ‘evil’ and – you guessed it – ‘apple tree’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el manzano nace de una ambigüedad del latín, no del hebreo.
«From that moment onwards, we started talking about an apple, which then definitively became tradition.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«No. In ancient Hebrew, ‘taking the fruit’ does not mean eating the fruit. It means consummating a sexual act» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The concept of original sin,” explains Biglino, “is not a biblical one. It was elaborated by theology. And above all it serves the purpose of creating a sense of guilt in the individual, through which he can then be conditioned and led to respect the rules» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente nombrando a la jerarquía eclesiástica como intermediaria de esa reconciliación.
«It refers to a completely different situation. Adam and Eve make a choice, and as a result of that choice they are free to reproduce independently.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: lo que el relato registra sería la adquisición de autonomía reproductiva.
«The act performed by Eve seems – even according to the Jewish tradition – to be a sexual one, through which she joins with the so-called serpent.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el seems dentro de la frase.
«It doesn’t say. Tradition sometimes describes this act as truly sexually violent.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si Eva consintió: se abstiene y remite a lo que dice la tradición.
«In any case, it was from this sexual union of Eve with the ‘serpent’ that Cain was born. It is after this act that the Elohim say, ‘Now the Adam has become like one of us» — Biglino, entrecomillado: de esa unión hace descender a Caín.
«They fear that the Adamites may have access to the so-called Tree of Life.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: quienes temen no son un Dios sino los guardianes del jardín.
«Biglino is among those who interpret the expression “Tree of Life” as something quite different, namely the “technologies that guaranteed a very long life, like that of the Elohim themselves» — el narrador, recogiendo la lectura tecnológica del árbol de la vida.
«If this had happened, if the first Adamites had gained access to those genetic practices, they would have become unmanageable.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el motivo de la expulsión sería de manejo, no de castigo.
«This interpretation, Biglino points out, is even present in the notes of the Jerusalem Bible. This authoritative Dominican exegesis, put out by the School of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem, “states that, in effect, the expulsion of the Adamites was not a punishment for something they had done but rather a sort of preventive decision» — el narrador declara la cadena: la lectura preventiva la respalda una exégesis dominicana, no solo Biglino.
«That same passage,” continues Biglino, “is interpreted differently by the apostle Paul, and he reads it as the moment when guilty act was originated, one which would then extend to all humankind.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sitúa en Pablo el origen de la lectura culpable; la construcción when guilty act was originated va tal cual.
«Of course. The complete articulated formulation of this concept was the product of Augustine of Hippo.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la formulación acabada del pecado original.
«The term ‘snake’, in fact, also has the meaning of possessor of knowledge. The double serpent could therefore represent profound knowledge, with particular reference to the double helix of DNA.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la equivalencia con el ADN la formula en condicional.
«This is true deep knowledge, the knowledge possessed above all by geneticists, who know the most intimate part of human structure. From there, the representation of the snake then came to symbolize those who deal with this type of information and who possess this kind of technology. In essence, the art of medicine.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: de ahí deriva el emblema de la medicina.
«In truth, Biglino specifies, it was only the female who was born in the “earthly paradise”. The Bible states, in fact, that Adam “was placed” in Gan Eden.» — el narrador: el verbo del texto indica que a Adán lo trasladaron de otro sitio.
«As for the female, Eve, Genesis says that “she was made” (in other words, manufactured), using a “curved lateral part” of the male, who had been sedated and put into a state of “deep sleep”. Anesthesia.» — el narrador lee la costilla como parte lateral curva y el sueño profundo como anestesia.
«The Gan Eden was an experimental laboratory,” Biglino summarizes. “The Elohim, the Bible tells us, produced every kind of tree that gave good edible fruit.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el jardín como sitio de ensayo con plantas y animales destinados a alimentar a los trabajadores.
«Some Hebrew exegesis, such as that of Amos Luzzatto, says that the expression ‘good and evil’ does not refer to the ethical concept of the two terms but rather to the physiopathology of the human body. In other words, the knowledge of good and evil indicates the experience of feeling good and ill.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando a Amos Luzzatto: bien y mal se leerían como sano y enfermo.
«As long as they were inside that enclosed and protected place, the Adamites did not know physical suffering. And according to a particular Jewish exegesis, the antediluvian patriarchs remained young in appearance until their death.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«are driven out because they had become reproductively independent. This should never have happened. And, above all, the breeding between the Adamites and a member of the lineage of the Elohim, which in the Bible is represented by the ‘snake’, should never have happened either. Their interbreeding was the real cause behind the expulsion of the Adamites from Gan Eden.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la causa de la expulsión sería el cruce entre dos linajes, no una falta moral.
«The lineage of the serpent is the one directly descended from the sexual act that the serpent – a rival Elohim – had performed with Eve, which resulted in the birth of Cain.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la enemistad entre linajes del texto se lee así como genealogía.
«In Genesis, chapter 2,” Biglino reminds us, “it is said that the Elohim gave all the animals to Adam so that he could name them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; en esa misma escena los Elohim advierten que los animales no le bastan a Adán.
«It is, then, more and more unlikely that the lord of Gan was some omniscient God who first needed to observe Adam at work before understanding that he needed a woman.» — el narrador: el argumento contra la omnisciencia sale del propio orden de la escena.
«With those words, it is clearly stated that, before Eve, Adam had been offered several females that were not satisfactory to him. The expression ‘this time’ appears in Jewish translations as ‘finally’, precisely to indicate that only at that moment had Adam received a female suitable for him, made from his own genetic heritage.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la fórmula esta vez implicaría intentos anteriores.
«The Sumerian-Akkadian accounts, from which the biblical story derives, tell us how the so-called divinities had made various attempts to produce the so-called Adam.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The first experiments resulted in defective men. There were those who could not close their eyes, those who could not close their hands, those who had a twisted spine, who could not hold their urine.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los intentos fallidos que refieren los relatos mesopotámicos.
«One of the most disastrous experiments actually occurred with the genetic material of Enki, one of the two sons of the lord of the empire, and it was» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente atribuyendo el Adán logrado a una ingeniera anunnaki.
«The Biglino method works like this: ‘pretend’ that the Bible is simply telling the truth.» — el narrador nombra el método por el que todo lo anterior se sostiene.
«Do we have any proof or evidence? Absolutely not. We don’t even know who, exactly when, or even in what language those codices were written.» — el narrador declara que no hay prueba, y lo hace inmediatamente después de exponer la reconstrucción entera.
«In other parts of the world, these beings – individuals with identical roles and similar characteristics – are called the Devas, Viracochas, Netheru, Tuatha De Danaan.» — el narrador extiende la identificación a otros panteones.
«Let’s stick with the Bible,” Biglino recommends. “The Old Testament doesn’t tell us» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de quiénes eran y de dónde venían: se abstiene y devuelve la pregunta al texto.
«Bob Dylan, for his part, sees this “divine” injunction only as simple and brutal intimidation: either you decide to kill your son, or I will kill you.» — el narrador abre el capítulo con la lectura que Dylan hace del sacrificio de Isaac en Highway 61 Revisited.
«The answer, once more, is very simple,” says Mauro Biglino. “The Bible is not a religious text. That book, in reality, never talks about God.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la respuesta a la crueldad del episodio es negar el sujeto que la comete.
«Of Yahweh. Just one of the many Elohim mentioned in it, the one to whom were assigned the descendants of Jacob, son of that Isaac who was about to be sacrificed like a young goat.» — el narrador: Yahweh es uno entre varios Elohim y su gente es una parte, no la humanidad.
«Yahweh has always shown himself to be merciless towards the enemies of his people, the people of Israel» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Simply to conquer a territory to reign over.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, respondiendo cuál era el propósito de ese personaje.
«The truth, Biglino continues, is that the Bible is essentially a book about war» — el narrador recoge la caracterización del libro entero.
«Thus Joshua subjugated the whole country: the highlands, the Negeb, the lowlands and watered foothills, and all their kings.» — Josué 10 en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«He left not one survivor and put every living thing under the curse of destruction, as Yahweh, God of Israel, had commanded.» — Josué 10 en la versión que el libro reproduce; la orden se atribuye a Yahweh dentro del propio texto.
«In the Book of Judges, it says that when they reached Lais, they found a people who lived in peace. The inhabitants were harmless, not hostile, so they felt safe. Moreover, Lais was far from any city that might have helped them. And so, once they arrived, the members of the tribe of Dan put those peaceful people to the sword and burned the city down.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: elige el caso de una comunidad inofensiva para mostrar que el exterminio no era defensivo.
«Note here that the Midianites were direct descendants of Abraham, so very close relatives of the Israelites. Yet Yahweh’s orders were to annihilate them all.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el parentesco entre exterminador y exterminados es parte del argumento.
«In this sharing of the spoils, Yahweh is entitled to 675 sheep, 72 oxen, 61 donkeys and 32 living people.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el reparto del botín en Números 31.
«what possible use could Yahweh ever have for 32 girls? Shouldn’t he be the spiritual and transcendent God, omniscient and omnipotent» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la pregunta con que enfrenta el reparto a la definición teológica.
«In the first period of the “reign” of Yahweh, there was in fact an ancient and aberrant custom, which our current morality can only define as abominable: the sacrificial killing of firstborn children.» — el narrador, y fecha la costumbre en la primera etapa de esa relación.
«In the Bible, Yahweh repeatedly says that firstborn children ‘belong’ to him, and at some point it is even said that firstborns had to be ransomed. They are even assigned a monetary value, and newborns had to be ranomed after 30 days.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía ranomed va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«I myself shall give them bad decrees and laws that do not give life,” says Yahweh, explaining that he would ‘contaminate’ the parents with their offerings, ‘by making them sacrifice their firstborns.» — Ezequiel 20 en la versión que el libro reproduce, y de donde Biglino saca que el sacrificio fue mandado y no tolerado.
«King Josiah, in the seventh century BCE, finally stopped it, says the scholar. The sovereign “decided to enact religious reforms, attempting to put an end to this barbaric practice, replacing it with a ransom» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado: el rescate en dinero sustituye al sacrificio.
«From that moment on, they also tried to make people forget the past. With Josiah’s reforms, they avoided remembering that, for centuries, firstborns had been killed and burned as a sacrifice to Yahweh.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la reforma incluiría el olvido de lo reformado.
«Granted, the Old Testament remains a collection of books with no certain sources. What’s more, it has been continuously reworked over centuries. It does, however, retain narrative integrity and underlying coherence.» — el narrador; la coherencia interna, no la procedencia, es lo que la obra reclama del texto.
«The Bible certainly has no monopoly on the practice of human sacrifice.» — el narrador.
«The difference, if any, is that it seems as though the Bible is the only one that isn’t “allowed” to be itself: perhaps a historical photograph, no crueler than others.» — el narrador enuncia así el agravio comparativo que atraviesa el capítulo.
«I say that the Bible is always worth reading. If, for just a moment, we set aside the idea that it’s talking about a transcendent divinity, we can enjoy it for what it is. It tells us in detail how those people may have lived back then, and it reveals to us the very practical nature of the relationship between men and those figures that the Old Testament refers to as Elohim, the exact meaning of which no one in the world can claim to know.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; declara ignorar el significado exacto del término sobre el que descansa toda su lectura.
«Some of my detractors reproach me. According to them, I am engaging in a ‘reading of the ignorant’, of those who understand nothing.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, recogiendo la objeción que le hacen.
«Those who accuse me of lending weight to a literal reading are the same people who, when it suits them, validate verses like the ones that Genesis opens with.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: su reproche es de inconsistencia, no de método.
«If I had to exalt and celebrate a divinity, could I really present it in such way» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Those who deny any historical validity to the Bible inevitably have great difficulty explaining how the biblical authors could have invented so many atrocities to present their God.» — el narrador, sobre la dificultad del lado contrario.
«I have never said that a literal reading is the only one possible,” clarifies» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con the translator.
«But I have to note that it is the only one that is regularly avoided. In my opinion, it deserves at least equal status and should be considered on the same level as other interpretive readings of the Old Testament: theological, esoteric and symbolic, gematria-cabalistic. Fine, I have no objections. They are all legitimate. But shouldn’t we include a literal reading as well? It is the one we are duty-bound to start with: the actual text, word for word. For me, it is essentially about respecting the biblical authors, carefully reading what they have to say.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: reclama paridad para la lectura literal y reconoce como legítimas la teológica, la esotérica, la simbólica y la gemátrico-cabalística.
«The Psalms, Biglino emphasizes, are always presented to us as songs of glory and thanksgiving, addressed to the one spiritual and transcendent God.» — el narrador expone la lectura recibida antes de que Biglino la discuta.
«In reality, they are something quite different. They are songs of way, hymns sung by the people to their leader, thanking him for the victory in battle.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; songs of way por songs of war va tal como lo imprime la fuente.
«Absolutely not. In reality, it is quite clear how this ‘God’s love’ was only for his people, Israel. And it was related to the violent actions that ‘God’ had taken, always in favor of his chosen people against other peoples.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el amor eterno del salmo 136.
«He struck Egypt’s firstborns - because his love is eternal.» — salmo 136 en la versión que el libro reproduce, con el estribillo pegado al exterminio.
«This is the case of Psalm 137, in which he addresses the “daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,” with these words: “Blessed is he who will repay you for what you did to us, blessed is he who will take your little ones and smash them against the rocks.”» — el narrador reproduce el salmo 137.
«Reading it in its entirety, once again, we understand its true nature.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el salmo 18: la lectura completa es su procedimiento.
«These are songs of war that a victorious people addresses to their general in thanks.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«After all, the Bible defines him literally as ‘male warrior’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el destinatario de esos cantos.
«He is also a lover of wine, expecting the equivalent of 3-5 liters a day.» — el narrador, sobre el Shakhar que Yahweh reclama.
«The Hebrew term indicates precisely the act of getting drunk and of saying nonsensical things.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Shakhar.
«According to the text, he was also literally crazy about another specialty: smoke. This was a very particular type of smoke, produced by burning the very tender fat that grows around the abdominal organs in newborn mammals.» — el narrador, y precisa que ese humo salía de corderos y también de recién nacidos.
«When speaking of sacrifices, the biblical God is always very precise. He provides very detailed practical instructions, partly because he wanted a very specific portion of the victims for himself.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Levítico 3.
«It is a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord.» — Levítico en la versión que el libro reproduce; la obra se detiene en que la ofrenda se llama alimento.
«In Hebrew, in fact, the word for ‘pleasing’ means ‘relaxing’ and ‘calming’. This is stated very explicitly in chapter 28 of the Book of Numbers. There, again referring to sacrifices, Yahweh clearly says that it must be a sacrifice consumed by fire. The aroma is sweet and pleasing to the Lord, to the point of ‘appeasing him’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el aroma no complace, apacigua.
«The calming effect of that smoke on Yahweh is affirmed several times.» — el narrador.
«The smoke produced by burnt fat contains some very particular molecules. Their structure is similar to that of the endorphins that our brain» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente refiriéndose a las endorfinas que el cerebro produce bajo estrés.
«This taste for smoke is found in many other stories of ancient peoples, stories that speak of the sacrifices they made to their divinities. The Sumerians, for example, tell us that after the flood, their Noah – called Utnapishtim or Ziusudra – offered a great sacrifice of animals to the divinities who had come there.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«That’s precisely what the Sumerian-Akkadian text says: the deities rushed over, “attracted by the smoke like flies to flesh» — el narrador cita el relato sumerio-acadio.
«The same thing is highlighted in stories relating to the Greek gods, for whom wholesale slaughters were celebrated. And also in the Homeric poems: how the part of the animal that was burned was to be prepared is described in great detail, in order to produce that famous smoke so pleasing to the deities. And that was a specific task to be carried out by men alone: the gods demanded it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Historians like Strabo tell us that the Celts at times burned their prisoners alive, singing and dancing so as not to hear their screams.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando a Estrabón; añade que los historiadores lo presentan como exigencia de los dioses y no como crueldad propia.
«It is very difficult for liturgical ceremonials to dwell on Yahweh’s “rotisseries”, which for a certain time also included newborns and was only later limited to mutton.» — el narrador.
«We can only speculate on the real reason for this.» — el narrador, sobre por qué esos personajes necesitaban el humo: lo deja en especulación declarada.
«This is an idea that will resonate with the followers of the “ancient aliens” theory, those convinced of the extraterrestrial origins of that group of rulers. Mauro Biglino prefers to remain silent on that topic.» — el narrador deslinda a su entrevistado de la corriente de los antiguos astronautas en el punto mismo en que la menciona.
«The Bible does not explain where those lords came from.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la abstención sobre el origen, sostenida a lo largo del libro.
«In the Christian religion it is taught that God gave 10 commandments: in reality, the precepts that Yahweh gave to his people are 613. And they are all precepts related to the need for creating a people, for unifying it with rules and, especially in the initial phase, for rendering the coexistence of those people livable and orderly, forced as they were to live in the uncomfortable desert of Exodus.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: los preceptos se leen como norma de convivencia de un campamento.
«The so-called biblical God was very careful keep his people from being exterminated by diseases, epidemics, and so on.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el carácter higiénico de buena parte de los 613; la elisión de to en careful keep va tal cual.
«The same Commandments that were later used by the Church,” continues Biglino, “relate to prohibitions that had to be observed this particular people, though they did not apply to relations with others.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: los mandamientos no serían universales sino internos al grupo; la elisión de by en observed this va tal cual.
«The prohibition of killing and stealing, along with the prohibition of taking other people’s animals or women, served the purpose of avoiding internal feuds. At the same time, however, the whole Bible clearly tells us what could and should be done with goods taken from others in the course of their battles of conquest.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It was forbidden to have relations with women belonging to other tribes, even if these other peoples – such as the Moabites, Ammonites, Amalekites, Midianites – all belonged to the family of Abraham.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre lo que llama el sesgo de linaje de esas normas.
«In reality, the term in Hebrew does not have that meaning. It clearly indicates ‘your neighbor’, someone belonging to the same clan, tribal or familial.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el prójimo del texto sería el del propio clan, no la humanidad.
«In short: no particular “divine” rule assigned to the human race.» — el narrador.
«It was within these limited groups that those acts were not to be committed. With others, however, extermination and theft were in fact ordered by Yahweh himself.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Mauro Biglino shakes his head. It’s all false, all made up» — el narrador, sobre el relato corriente del Éxodo; Biglino añade enseguida que quien lo dice es la Biblia.
«Going through Biglino’s essays feels like standing witness to a relentless demolition operation. Not of the Bible, but rather of the “unfaithful” narrative that has been deformed by theology.» — el narrador precisa contra qué va esa demolición: no contra el texto, sino contra su relato heredado.
«A very famous representation of this is the magnificent painting, perhaps the work of Ghirlandaio, embellishing the Sistine Chapel itself.» — el narrador, sobre el fresco del paso del mar; la atribución a Ghirlandaio la formula con reserva y queda pendiente de cotejo.
«It’s true. The Old Testament never mentions the Red Sea. As for that famous passage in Exodus, it only mentions a ‘sea of reeds’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el Yam-Suf es un carrizal, no el Mar Rojo.
«Basically, the Israelites crossed a reedbed where, when a certain wind expressly mentioned in the Bible blew all night, a shoal opened, making the crossing possible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el viento de la noche está en el propio texto y basta para un vado.
«So the crossing had no hint of the spectacular that theological interpretation has always attributed to it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«To begin with, it is difficult to talk about a ‘real Moses’,” says Biglino. “The figure of Moses, like many other biblical figures, is very controversial. And we can only ‘pretend’ that he existed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la historicidad de Moisés queda dentro del fingimiento metódico.
«If we eliminate this figure, we must consequently eliminate all the subsequent history, because Moses was the true founder of the Israelite people as we know it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«If he existed, he must have been an Egyptian. The Bible itself says so. And he clearly must have been some kind of military commander. His knowledge of the territory in all its peculiarities made him particularly useful for Yahweh, who used him as his leader on the field and as his intermediary with his people» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el condicional dentro de la frase.
«The Bible tells us that Moses fled from Egypt and freed his people from slavery. In reality, though, many extra-biblical Jewish stories tell us that it was never a question of real slavery, considering also that their departure from Egypt took place in a very peculiar way and with some strange characteristics, to say the least.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyándose en relatos judíos extrabíblicos.
«That people, Biglino observes, abandoned the Egyptian territories, taking with them many animals, and above all, great quantities of precious metals, including gold. “This wouldn’t have been possible if they had been slaves» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado: el botín de salida como argumento contra la esclavitud.
«Jewish tales even say that the pharaoh would have followed them in the first part of their journey; not to ‘pursue’ them, but to make sure they would not turn around and come back.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Moses himself brought with him a group of armed men, the Levi tribe, which he needed to quell any possible revolt and to prevent his people from returning to their previous condition.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la tribu de Leví como fuerza de contención interna.
«The Bible does, in fact, talk about many complaints from the Jewish people. Basically, they were saying that they were better off in Egypt because they had food and lived in peace.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Speaking of the Jewish people in general terms, we have to say that those who were in Egypt were only the descendants of Jacob, the Israelites.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la emigración habría alcanzado solo a una parte.
«Regarding the number of those who had escaped from Egypt, the Bible tells us there were 600,000, counting only men of fighting age. To these we must add children, women and the elderly.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, dando la cifra que el propio texto trae.
«Precisely. We’ve really got to add that that at the time, the land of Canaan itself was under Egyptian control. So it just seems improper to say that the people of Moses ‘fled Egypt’ because, in reality, they lived in territories ruled by the pharaoh.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: si Canaán era egipcia, la huida no sale del dominio del faraón.
«With a script revised and corrected by Biglino in hand, it is unlikely that Charlton Heston would have accepted the role of Moses.» — el narrador, sobre la distancia entre esta lectura y el Éxodo de Hollywood.
«The origin of the plagues of Egypt is theologically traced back to Yahweh, to his will to act on the pharaoh and convince him to free his people. But in reality, those plagues can be ascribed to a succession of natural events, events originating from an earthquake that gave rise to the consequent and coherent progression of all these occurrences.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: las plagas se encadenan a partir de un sismo.
«In the 1980s, Biglino recalls, essentially the same “incidents” occurred in Cameroon, on Lake Nyos.» — el narrador introduce el paralelo moderno sobre el que descansa la explicación.
«an earthquake released iron ore into the lake, which reddened the waters. “The oxidation then caused the death of the fish and the escape of the frogs, which then invaded the surrounding area» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado: agua roja, peces muertos y ranas, en ese orden.
«This one in the Bible could be explained by events that occurred in Africa in the 1980s. That very same seismic movement generated a mixture of gases that also contained carbon monoxide.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la muerte de los primogénitos; el gas del lago Nyos se nombra como monóxido de carbono y queda pendiente de cotejo.
«So nothing to do with any “divine” intervention, not even for the mythical “plagues of Egypt”.» — el narrador.
«It is quite possible that certain stories simply traveled long distances, and quite probable that they were then incorporated into various local tales, duly enhanced to justify a “supernatural” explanation and intervention.» — el narrador, sobre cómo un suceso natural acaba narrado como prodigio; lo formula en términos de posibilidad.
«Very little remains of Exodus after Biglino’s demolition work. Or rather, after the demystification of those tales that, Bible at hand, now seem to be just fables, albeit beautiful ones.» — el narrador.
«Magical thinking: the essence of the “miracle”. Fantasy fiction? Not the biblical story, which is always explainable.» — el narrador: lo fantasioso no sería el relato bíblico sino su lectura teológica.
«No, quite the contrary. We are sweeping away the legend and sticking to the actual text, especially where it seems to have been regularly misrepresented.» — el narrador contesta a la objeción de que el libro despedace el Éxodo.
«That’s interesting. Where is this biblical monotheism? At best we can speak of henotheism, or choosing a particular divinity amongst many. Paul of Tarsus himself was aware of this much later. ‘There are many Theoi (Gods),’ he writes.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el término que propone para el Israel antiguo es henoteísmo, y lo apoya en Pablo.
«Many years before him, Solomon himself – celebrated in the Bible as the wisest of kings – at one point even erected various altars in honor of Elohim other than Yahweh.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The people encamped on the plain below start to fear that something might have happened to Moses so, wanting to be guided by an Elohim all the same, they asked Aaron to make a simulacrum, reproducing the image of one of the many they had known in Egypt.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el becerro no sería apostasía sino sustitución de un jefe ausente.
«The first oddity, Biglino points out, is precisely Aaron’s behavior in this circumstance. He blatantly betrays his Elohim yet he goes completely unpunished.» — el narrador, sobre la impunidad de Aarón como anomalía del relato.
«Here again we have behavior that is not explainable, unless we assume that Moses knew he could do that without facing any consequences and, above all, was safe in the knowledge that he would be able to get more.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las tablas rotas.
«In reality, this whole affair could have been engineered to flush out any potential rebels, to identify them and then kill them. And this is, in fact, exactly what happened immediately afterwards.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el episodio se lee como operación de identificación de disidentes.
«That’s all I have ever done. Report what it seems that I’m reading in the Bible. And then, to be clear, everyone is free to do whatever they want with that, either accepting my observations as good ones or throwing them away.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: describe su trabajo como reporte de lectura y deja al lector la decisión.
«Hold on: I have not ‘discovered’ anything. Shall we try to truly read the Bible» — Biglino, entrecomillado, rehusando otra vez el papel de descubridor.
«One thing can be said for certain: there are no flying carpets in the Old Testament.» — el narrador, que viene usando la alfombra mágica como metáfora suya.
«And yet the “air traffic” on those pages seems to be quite intense.» — el narrador.
«The leader of the people leaving Egypt “felt like he needed to meet the Elohim who had contacted him. Who was he really?”» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado: Moisés pide ver el Kavod para comprobar con quién trata.
«The term is theologically translated as “glory”, meaning a spiritual attribute of God, the glory of the Lord.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, expone primero la traducción que va a discutir.
«In truth, the scholar specifies, this word “stands for something heavy and powerful.”» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado.
«The whole of the biblical context, Biglino adds, “allows us to understand how, in fact, this was a means used by Yahweh to both move and fight.”» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado: el argumento se apoya en el contexto, no en la etimología sola.
«This detail already shows us that the so-called ‘glory of God’ did not always accompany ‘God’ because by looking at him, Moses didn’t see it, so he had to ask him to show it to him.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: si hay que pedir que lo muestren, no es un atributo.
«This tells us quite clearly that the ‘glory’ was to something that ‘passed by’ and that couldn’t be observed from the front because it was lethal. But if an observer took shelter behind rocks, he would live.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la construcción was to something va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The God of the Exodus seems to be unable to control the effects of his ‘glory’, while simple rocks could do the trick. So it is quite obvious that, whatever this was, it was something very physical and equally dangerous.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This account is perfectly consistent with other biblical tales that mention the Kavod. In Ezekiel, for example, when it says that, ‘rising from the ground’, the Kavod ‘makes a great noise.’» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la coherencia entre pasajes es su criterio de prueba.
«Reading the Bible, one can concretely hypothesize that the Ark was an instrument capable of producing, condensing and conserving energy.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el verbo hipotetizar dentro de la frase.
«Allow me to point out that the instrument in question could only be used by specialized, well-trained and even appropriately dressed personnel.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Those handling the Ark,” he says, “had to wear special clothing, creating» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente hablando de una jaula de Faraday y de una descarga electromagnética.
«It was hypothesized that, beneath the Muslim shrine, a strange golden chest called the “Ark of Gabriel” had been carelessly tampered with.» — el narrador, sobre los rumores de 2015 en La Meca, que él mismo presenta como rumores.
«All just fantasies? The only certainty remains an official communication dispatch sent by the Russian defense ministry. An oceanographic vessel, escorted by a battleship, docked in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to collect a precious “Islamic religious artefact» — el narrador separa lo documentado del relato que lo rodea.
«Was it all just a bit of fabulous fun with silly conspiracy theory? Better to withhold judgment for lack of confirmation.» — el narrador se abstiene expresamente sobre el Arca de Gabriel por falta de confirmación.
«What is certain is that it was also used as a weapon,” the scholar emphasizes. “And that, when taken to war, the Israeli army had to keep a distance of 2000 cubits, about one kilometer.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el Arca bíblica y la distancia de seguridad que el texto prescribe.
«Ark was used in the course of the siege of the city of Jericho as well, demolishing its walls. An episode mentioned in the Book of Joshua.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el artículo ausente al inicio va tal como lo imprime la fuente.
«Its construction is described to us in chapters 25 and 37 of Exodus, telling how it was coated internally and externally with gold, with acacia wood inside (which evidently served as a insulation).» — Biglino, entrecomillado: oro por fuera y por dentro con madera en medio, que él lee como aislante.
«Its deadly power is described in the Second Book of Samuel, chapter 6. While the Ark was being transported to Jerusalem, one of its keepers, Uzza, inadvertently touched it to keep it from falling from the chariot. He died instantly, electrocuted.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la muerte de Uzá.
«The First Book of Samuel “talks about when the Ark was captured by the Philistines following a battle against Israel. Immediately afterwards, a plague broke out among the Philistines.”» — Biglino, entrecomillado; añade que la devolvieron porque no sabían manejarla.
«The Ark was also sealed by a lid “with two figures called Cherubim positioned on top of it. Each of the Cherubim had two side panels through which Moses was able to hear the voice of Yahweh when he spoke to him from a distance, as described in chapter 25 of Exodus.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: de ahí sale la lectura de los querubines del Arca como equipo de comunicación.
«In the Bible, however – Exodus, Samuel, Joshua – the Ark is appears in disconcerting concrete reality.» — el narrador; la concordancia is appears va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The scholar insists on that very eloquent episode in which the Kavod is see by Moses, who “needs proof that Yahweh is actually able to keep his promises and lead the people of Israel in the conquest of the Promised Land.”» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado; la forma is see va tal cual.
«As for the Seraphim, Biglino adds, the term derives from the Hebrew root indicating “the act of burning» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado.
«In fact, they are described as a category of angels who were particularly close to God, inside his dwelling.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los serafines.
«If we combine the concept of burning, thus producing heat and light, with the fact that they were in the dwellingplace of God, and ‘making a continuous deafening noise’ at that, we can imagine that they were systems for producing energy, both thermal and luminous.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: quemar, alumbrar y hacer ruido le sugieren un generador; la fuente parte dwelling-place a fin de renglón y el índice devuelve la palabra unida.
«Exactly. Single-seat flying machines that Yahweh straddled, seated as on horseback. Using one of these Cherubim, Yahweh even goes to battle, taking David away, saving him from certain death, as narrated in chapter 22 of the Second Book of Samuel.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el segundo tipo de querubín.
«Well, yes. The ‘celestial chariots’ are ubiquitous in the so-called myths, which are part of the heritage of peoples from every continent on Earth. The Greeks talk about them constantly, as do the Romans. Tacitus, for example, mentions the heavenly armies that appeared in the sky above Jerusalem in 70 CE. There are also references to flying objects in the works of Julius Obsequens.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el argumento es de ubicuidad, y nombra a Tácito y a Julio Obsecuente entre sus fuentes.
«The apparitions in the skies of Jerusalem, Biglino recalls, are also cited by the historian Josephus. “He speaks of them as events that had many witnesses, so they are absolutely credible.» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado; el criterio de credibilidad que invoca es el número de testigos.
«Today we would likely call those lights by a very well-known name: Unidentified Flying Objects. In the fall of 2019, the US Navy renamed them UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.» — el narrador enlaza los prodigios antiguos con la nomenclatura militar contemporánea.
«I am not directly concerned with Ufology,” says Biglino. “However, reading the ancient texts and making comparisons between what I read in the Bible and what we read in many other texts, from all the continents of the Earth, it has become easy for me to hypothesize that the Elohim, corresponding to the Sumer-Akkadian Anunna or Anunnaki, may belong to a race, or in any case to a group of individuals coming from places other than planet Earth.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: se desmarca de la ufología y en la misma respuesta formula la hipótesis de un origen no terrestre, en condicional.
«The traditions of other continents, and especially the Hindu religion, speak of the Children of the Stars as accepted fact. And the Sumerians, just like the Hindu religion, tell us about the clashes between those beings, of battles fought up in the air and of flying objects crisscrossing the planet’s skies.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Among other things, Biglino also noted the substantial correspondence between the biblical Elohim and the so-called Greek Theoi.» — el narrador.
«Even these, who were called gods, had knowledge and technology superior to that of the men they ruled over.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los Theoi griegos.
«The presence of flying objects is emphasized in all the tales of the Sumerians, the Indians, Chinese, Greeks and the inhabitants of the American continent, both in the North and the South.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the context of my work, it is not essential to establish whether the Elohim were extraterrestrials or not. The important thing is to understand that when the Bible speaks of Elohim, it isn’t speaking about God. It’s speaking about individuals in flesh and blood, who were endowed with knowledge and technologies far superior to those of the primitive men they had to deal with.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: declara que el origen extraterrestre no es parte de su tesis, y que lo que sostiene es la corporeidad de los Elohim.
«Science-fiction books and films,” Biglino admits, “are very often communication tools we use to predict a future that, in fact, already exists. Or» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente diciendo que también transmiten información real en forma fantástica.
«The early episodes of Star Trek already had all the technologies we use today. So what was once just science-fiction has become technological reality for everyday use.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The character of Superman was invented by two Jewish men, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who gave him all the characteristics typical of the biblical Elohim. Originally, Superman was called Kal-El, which means ‘El the swift and fast’. The hero comes from a fictional planet called Krypton, which means ‘unknown’. Curious fact: the place of origin of the Elohim is not known either» — Biglino, entrecomillado: lee el nombre Kal-El como compuesto con la raíz El.
«Kal-El, or Superman, is stronger than men but he is just as mortal as we are. This aspect is reiterated in the Bible as well. The Psalms speak of the mortality of the Elohim, who are very long-lived but certainly not ‘eternal’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la mortalidad de los Elohim es pieza central de su lectura y la funda en los salmos.
«This stretch of water on the border with Jordan was the location of the so-called Pentapolis, made up of five coastal towns.» — el narrador, sobre las cinco ciudades del mar Muerto de las que Sodoma y Gomorra son dos.
«According to doctrinal, theological tradition, the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their inhabitants’ sexual perversion.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, enunciando la lectura recibida antes de objetarla.
«This in itself is inexplicable. The destruction would, in fact, have necessarily involved all the inhabitants indiscriminately.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«For every one person guilty of sexual perversion, four or five innocent people, plus all the animals, would have paid the price.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: su objeción a la lectura moral es de proporción entre culpa y castigo.
«In reality, Biglino points out, it is the Bible itself that recalls that those cities were destroyed because they no longer accepted Yahweh’s laws.» — el narrador: el motivo estaría en el propio texto y sería de obediencia, no de costumbres.
«So, in fact, they had decided to change alliance during the wars fought between the various factions of Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la destrucción como episodio de una guerra entre facciones.
«The weapons used in this case had consequences that the Bible itself describes. Centuries later – and still now, two millennia after the event – the Bible tells us that that land was still arid and could not be cultivated. This gives us an idea of what sort of weaponry might actually have been used in that territory.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la esterilidad duradera del terreno es su indicio.
«The Sumerian and Akkadian tales, which date back even earlier, tell us about the very same event, but in greater detail.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«There it is told that five different weapons, launched from the sky, were used on each of the five cities that were to be destroyed. And again Erra, along with other Sumerian-Akkadian stories, also tells us about the effects of what is called the ‘evil wind’, which killed men at a great distance, even kilometers away, with consequences typical of atomic bombs.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la Saga de Erra.
«Hair fell out and lungs burned. People literally dissolved into thin air.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los efectos que describe ese relato.
«That ‘evil wind’,” he says, “risked killing the very Elohim who had decided to use those weapons and who were located in Mesopotamia.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el arma se le habría vuelto contra quienes la usaron.
«There’s no point in mincing words: we are talking about something that actually took place.» — el narrador afirma en su propia voz la historicidad del episodio, sin la reserva que Biglino suele poner.
«That event is placed around 2000 BCE, de facto representing the end of the Sumerian civilization.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the exemplary 1963 novel The Council of Egypt, by Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia, who is also greatly admired abroad, a disconcerting story is told.» — el narrador abre el capítulo con la novela de Sciascia y su abate falsificador.
«It was discovered that Vella – the only person at the court of Palermo who knew Arabic – had completely fabricate that translation. The “Council of Egypt” was in no way a correction of the chronology of the early dynastic partition of Sicily, based on recognized grants. That Arabic document was simply a Life of the Prophet, a very common Muslim text of religious inspiration.» — el narrador: el manuscrito falsificado era en realidad una vida del Profeta, y quien lo desmintió no tenía cómo, porque Vella era el único arabista de la corte; la forma fabricate va tal cual.
«In 1440, Valla discovered that the so-called Donation of Constantine was a forgery. The Latin it was written in could not possibly have been used in 315 CE, at the dawn of Roman Christianity.» — el narrador: el argumento con que Valla impugna la Donación es de lengua, y es el mismo tipo de argumento que la obra reclama para la Biblia.
«But that apocryphal text had served as the basis for the Catholic Church’s claim to temporal power over the lands of the Roman Empire.» — el narrador: lo que la falsificación sostenía era un poder político.
«Vella distorts the truth and cheats, having the manuscript say something that the text does not say.» — el narrador.
«Valla, on the other hand, as a kind of mirror image, does precisely the contrary. He debunks a similar fabrication.» — el narrador; los dos nombres casi iguales le sirven para nombrar las dos operaciones posibles sobre un texto antiguo.
«As for Pinocchio, the symbolic interpretations of this masterpiece, written at the end of the 19th century by the Italian Freemason Carlo Alberto Lorenzini (whose pen name was Collodi) are still quite striking.» — el narrador; es la única mención de la masonería en todo el libro y va como dato biográfico de Collodi.
«For example, we only know Jesus’ mother, just as we only know Pinocchio’s father. Both seem to have originated from just one parent (at least one human one» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el paralelo entre el muñeco y el Mesías.
«Not nailed to a cross, perhaps, but hung from wood nonetheless.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: en la primera edición del cuento Pinocho muere colgado de una encina.
«These are all speculations, of course, based on the view of Jesus provided by the theological approach.» — el narrador declara especulativo todo el paralelo anterior.
«The very first Bible was modified first by Josiah, the sovereign who – for understandable reasons of decorum – attempted to erase the memory of the barbarism of the initial human sacrifices.» — el narrador ordena en etapas lo que la obra llama la espiritualización del texto.
«The Jews of the Diaspora, having taken refuge in Egypt, rewrote the Bible in Greek, translating it very freely. In this Bible of the Seventy, which later influenced the Latin version, notions of Hellenistic origin previously absent from the Hebrew text are thus introduced: Soul, Spirit, omnipotence, life after death.» — el narrador: la Septuaginta habría introducido cuatro nociones que el hebreo no tenía.
«These are all elements that were borrowed from Greek Platonism, acquired a posteriori and included in the Septuagint to allow the exiles to inscribe Judaism among the great traditions of the Mediterranean, thus» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente hablando de una lengua y unos contenidos nuevos para el público del siglo III a. C.
«The Christian Messiah is the son of the God of the Jews. His mission is to redeem humanity from death, which was introduced into this world by the original sin committed by Adam and Eve, who were practically immortal before that infamous betrayal.» — el narrador expone la versión catequética que Biglino va a negar acto seguido.
«On top of that, there is no trace whatsoever of the concept of eternity in the Bible. This misconception stems from a mistranslation of the word “olam”.» — el narrador.
«That term simply means ‘time whose duration is unknown’ and more often than not, ‘unknown place’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre olam.
«Some Hebrew dictionaries always warn that ‘olam’ should not be translated as ‘eternity’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el reparo está en los propios diccionarios.
«Speaking of forgeries, as early as 1200 BCE he argued that religion was a kind of “narrative fiction”, a story invented by the priestly caste of the time.» — el narrador, sobre Sanjuniatón, a quien vuelve para cerrar el capítulo.
«Far be it from me to challenge the full legitimacy of theological speculation. What does theology do? It elaborates an idea of God. To this I say very well, but I would also add that problems arise when Christian theology claims to base its convictions on the biblical text. There is only one way to do that: by distorting the Old Testament and making it say something it has never said.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: acepta la teología como especulación y objeta solo que se apoye en el texto.
«Not by everyone, though. In 2016, the German Bishops’ Conference finally accepted correct translations for that particular verse.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Isaías 7.
«In fact, in Hebrew, there is no mention of a virgin, just a young woman, a maiden. The Hebrew term for virgin is ‘betullah’, while the Hebrew term used in Isaiah is ‘almah’, which only means ‘young girl’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el par almah y betullah es el eje de su lectura de la profecía.
«Absolutely. Isaiah does not speak of the Madonna, but of a girl named Abiia, as is written in the Second Book of Kings and in the Second Book of Chronicles.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; identifica a la joven con la esposa del rey Ajaz.
«It was perfect for supporting various assumptions. To begin with, the formidable infallibility of biblical prophecies. And above all, the importance – confirmed by the Old Testament – of the mission of the future Messiah.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre para qué servía el malentendido.
«They admit that, in the verses of Isaiah, it says clearly that the young girl was already pregnant when the text was written.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre lo que reconocen los obispos alemanes.
«In the footnotes of the German edition of the Bible”, Biglino acknowledges with satisfaction, “it is also specified that ‘almah’ means ‘young woman, not ‘virgin’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They were adapted after the fact to give validity and antiquity to the ‘sacred’ history that has been elaborated by theology.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las profecías bíblicas en general.
«The Hebrew term Malachim is translated as ‘angels’, and doctrinal, theological tradition has always presented them as spiritual entities. In reality,” Biglino specifies, “the term Malach indicates ‘the one who brings a message’. The Malachim, in fact, were used as messengers, guardians, monitors, and also as executors of the orders of the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado dentro de la prosa del narrador, que abre la frase exponiendo la lectura tradicional: Malach sería una función, mensajero, y no una naturaleza.
«That ladder seems to refer to the presence of some sort of transport system, or in any case a communication system between the Earth and something that was in the sky. A transport system used by the so-called angels. Not being spiritual entities at all, they used that ladder to go up and down.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la escalera de Jacob en Génesis 28.
«There is call for caution. “This interpretation was written after the events had already taken place. The durations of the various periods, then, were only written down once those historical periods had long been over.» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado, sobre el cómputo de los peldaños.
«The only chronological fact that is missing is the one relating to the period of the so-called Roman domination, which at the time of writing had not yet ended.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el único periodo que falta en el cómputo es el que aún no había terminado al escribirse, y de ahí saca su conclusión.
«From this we can deduce that the prophetic value of this interpretation is almost nil.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It must be reiterated, though, that all the biblical prophecies were written ex-post-facto, at a time when the facts narrated had already occurred.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; añade que los propios rabinos consignan que las profecías se modificaban con el tiempo.
«In reality, at first, the Book of Daniel spoke of barely 70 years of waiting. Then it was changed to ‘70 weeks of years’ to artificially include certain events in the years indicated ‘prophetically’ by the text.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el paso de setenta años a setenta semanas de años.
«Generally, they were fearsome characters. Individuals of flesh and blood who ate, walked, got dirty and had to clean themselves. They could even be attacked, as it is clear in the story of Lot, in Sodom, when he is visited by two ‘angels’ who risk being attacked by the crowd.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: los ángeles del texto comen, se ensucian y pueden ser agredidos.
«Saint Paul was also aware of this. In a letter, he warns women against ever showing up with head uncovered to gatherings where so-called ‘angels’ might be present.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el velo de las mujeres en Pablo.
«At which point the ‘angel’ makes him put it on a stone. Using an instrument he was holding in his hand, he instantly sets fire to it all.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el encuentro de Gedeón en Jueces 6.
«Not a very “supernatural” demon, is he? He rather seems inherent to the human soul. Like a “dark” side of us all, an evil inclination in humanity.» — el narrador, sobre el diablo de Sympathy for the Devil.
«He is remisicent of the devil that Bernard of Clairvaux always keeps on a leash in medieval representations. Saint Bernard’s message is that is better not to be hypocrites, since evil is present within us all.» — el narrador; las formas remisicent y that is better van tal como las imprime la fuente.
«In ancient Greek, the verb ‘diaballo’, meaning ‘to divide”, summarizes the concept of opposition.» — el narrador, sobre la raíz del término diablo.
«Satan,” Biglino explains, “is a word which in Hebrew means ‘adversary’, or ‘public accuser’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the Bible, this does not indicate the spirit of evil, let alone the lord of demons. The term Hebrew term “Satan” actually stands for a position that had to be filled temporarily, and in some cases even by order of» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente diciendo que el encargo podía venir del propio Yahweh, y la duplicación term Hebrew term va tal cual.
«The role of Satan coud be covered either by one of the Elohim or the Malachim, or even by a human, precisely because it does not indicate the evil entity that theology refers to.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía coud va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Satan? Not a character at all but rather a function. A social role, and a temporary one at that. Today we would call it a state prosecutor.» — el narrador traduce la figura a un cargo contemporáneo.
«When theology created the figure of the spiritual transcendent God, starting with Yahweh,” Biglino explains, “it made spiritual rivals of all those who, in reality, were just other Elohim. Contenders for the dominion over the same lands.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: los demonios serían dioses rivales degradados.
«One such Elohim, continues the scholar, was called Baal Peor. It means ‘lord of the exposure of the sexual organs’. And, in fact, he made his followers perform many sexual rites.» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado.
«The same thing happened to his “colleague” Baal Zavuv, another Elohim competing with Yahweh. Baal Zavuv means ‘lord of the flies’.» — el narrador; de esas dos transliteraciones saca Belfegor y Belcebú.
«But when Yahweh was transformed into the ‘One God’, his competitors were demoted to the rank of ‘devils’.» — el narrador.
«Needless to say, Biglino refutes this as well. It is enough for him to go through the latest edition of the Catholic Catechism, as he did in a video interview published on December 3, 2020.» — el narrador sitúa el material del capítulo en un video de diciembre de 2020.
«It is not the perpetrators of heinous crimes who are condemned here, but people who simply did not do their utmost to do good,” observes Biglino. “It seems to me that this sentence is being motivated by incomprehensible ruthlessness, especially considering that it is being handed down by the very one who said, ‘forgive, up to seventy times seven.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Mateo 25 citado en el artículo 1038 del Catecismo.
«And who is this hypothetical kingdom of heaven rewarding? The ‘sensible’ virgins. So far, so good: they are commendable. But when the ‘distracted’ virgins ask them for help, they don’t give it. They are clearly selfish: if you forgot to bring extra oil, that’s your problem. And in the end, who is rewarded by the groom? They are! And he punishes the others, who had committed a simple error, not a crime. And yet, for this reason alone, they are no longer worthy of entering the kingdom of heaven.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la parábola de las diez vírgenes.
«The character presented to us,” says Biglino, “appears to be totally in line with the so-called “God the Father” of the Old Testament, who is equally ruthless in barring the Temple – so direct contact with him – to people who have committed no crime, but are simply affected by disease or deformity.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la continuidad entre los dos Testamentos, no su ruptura, es lo que él sostiene.
«None of your descendants, for all time, may come forward to offer the food of his God if he has any infirmity, for none may come forward if he has an infirmity, be he blind or lame, disfigured or deformed, or with an injured foot or arm, a hunchback, someone with rickets or ophthalmia or the scab or running sores, or a eunuch.» — Levítico 21 en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«And what sin would these blind or deformed people be guilty of? None. “God simply doesn’t like them. He doesn’t want to see them.» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado.
«In his examination of these passages, Biglino sees no clear break between the Old and New Testaments at all, starting with the inflexible exclusion of the “goats” in the passage from Matthew quoted in the Catechism.» — el narrador enuncia la tesis del capítulo.
«Mauro Biglino has never liked this allegory, finding it misleading.» — el narrador, sobre la parábola del buen pastor en Juan.
«It is true that the shepherd defends the sheep from the wolf. But then to do what with them? In real life, we know the answer: the shepherd protects his animals because he will have to milk and shear them and, in the end, he will be the one, not the wolf, to slaughter them, sell them or eat them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la imagen pastoral leída con el oficio pastoril a la vista, que es la misma zootecnia del capítulo cuarto.
«A classic example? Socrates. Convicted on charges of “corruption of the young.” Pedophilia, basically. But sexual relationships with minors was an ordinary accepted practice in ancient Greece.» — el narrador, sobre la mutabilidad de la ética con que el libro relativiza los juicios morales sobre el texto.
«Incidentally, these deities were still the same, Homeric other: characters who travelled the skies on their Kavods, who demanded a daily dose of fat to be roasted and greedily sucked down.» — el narrador; la forma Homeric other va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«A spiritualizing re-elaboration of the most ancient texts began between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE,” he says. “A concept of reward and punishment, previously absent, was introduced, gradually breaking away from what the relationship with Yahweh had originally been, when people limited themselves to asking for his help to gain power, success and well-being» — Biglino, entrecomillado: fecha entre los siglos V y IV a. C. la aparición del premio y el castigo, ausentes antes.
«Something material, immediate, reasonable, without any hint of the metaphysical or the mystical.» — el narrador, sobre lo que las promesas de Yahweh ofrecían a quienes las recibían.
«The ‘righteous ones’ of Sodom, like Lot, are not necessarily good individuals. They are simply people who remained faithful to the covenant made with Yahweh and thus distant from his rival Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: justo significaría leal al pacto, no virtuoso.
«The same goes for the idea of evil. It simply meant distancing oneself from Yahweh’s daily rules.» — el narrador.
«The concept of Satan seems to pre-date the Judeo-Christian culture» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They were inspired by the few hints the Bible makes of him. In particular, they artificially connected him to the Lucifer character that the prophet Isaiah speaks about.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre cómo los Padres de la Iglesia arman la figura.
«Yes, but he uses this term ironically in reference to a powerful Babylonian ruler who believed himself to be a bearer of light but who fell disastrously.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el Lucifer de Isaías sería un rey babilonio nombrado con ironía.
«Satan has even been connected with the serpent that tempted Eve, but there is actually no trace of this link in the Bible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The term ‘God’ as we understand it,” Biglino explains, only enters the Bible with the translation into Latin by St. Jerome, in the 4th century CE.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Careful, though. Originally, ‘theos’ wasn’t even a noun, it was just an adjective. It meant ‘the act of moving quickly in space’. Like the stars do.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el griego theos.
«It was only later that theology elaborated the concept of a ‘Deus’, transforming it into the God that we know today.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Yes, but in reality there is no Hebrew word for God, understood as a transcendent and spiritual entity.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«God is the word artificially used to translate the term Elohim, whose true meaning is not known.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«There is no one in the world today who can correctly translate the word Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la palabra que sostiene su lectura es también la que declara intraducible.
«Elyon, explains the translator, is also used to indicate, for example, the upper part of a village, or the upper floor of a house.» — el narrador: los usos corrientes del término desmienten el superlativo absoluto.
«In Psalm 82, however, Elyon is mentioned directly during the assembly of the Elohim. He appears to be their supreme leader, in fact presiding over the assembly. He even admonishes them he warns them: do not even think of abusing your powers and treating humans so despotically. It is in this famous passage that the Elohim are reminded that they are mortal, just like the Adamites.» — el narrador; la duplicación admonishes them he warns them va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Pure fantasy in this case as well. The term ‘almighty’ is used as the translation of El Shaddai.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The most probable meaning is ‘lord of the steppes’, as stated by Catholic exegesis itself.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre El Shaddai; se apoya en la exégesis católica.
«Yet another arbitrary interpretation. ‘Eeternal’ is an erroneous translation of the Hebrew word ‘olam’ which only means ‘unknown’. It can refer to time but more often to space. In one of the Psalms, Yahweh is said to be ‘Lord of Olam’, which probably meant that his land of origin was not known.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía Eeternal va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The concept of eternity is, in fact, not part of ancient Semitic culture.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«There are a variety of hypotheses because it is unknown. We do not even know in what language it was originally pronounced.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el origen del término Yahweh.
«To summarize: in the Bible, ‘God’ does not exist. There are Elyon, El Shaddai, Yahweh and the other Elohim, including Kamosh and Milkom, (Beelzebub and Belfagor, or rather Baal Zavuv and Baal Peor» — el narrador resume el capítulo con la lista de nombres que quedan en pie.
«There never was an apple. Eden was not the Earthly Paradise: the Gan was a kind of protected experimental breeding lab.» — el narrador.
«There is no hint in those pages of the creation of the universe: no trace whatsoever of the verb “to create” is to be found. And the beautiful Hebrew word “Bereshit” probably just means “at the beginning of this story”, not “at the beginning of time”.» — el narrador, con la reserva probably en la propia frase.
«Even Hebrew exegesis has always reflected an awareness of the exact meaning of expressions like Yam-Suf: a sea of reeds. There was never any mention of the Red Sea Moses saga.» — el narrador.
«Similarly, Jewish scholars have always known that the Adamites were made by genetic cloning and manipulation.» — el narrador atribuye ese saber a los estudiosos judíos, sin nombrarlos aquí.
«Mauro Biglino says that we need to decide that for ourselves.» — el narrador.
«I have said this repeatedly, in dozens of conferences. Don’t believe what I tell you, either. But trust me when I tell you to do yourselves a favor and read» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente pidiendo que cada quien lea la Biblia por su cuenta.
«Nobody can say that with any certainty. I repeat: the Old Testament is devoid of sources. They are unknown to us.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si el relato es verdadero.
«On the other hand, the narrative our biblical translator presents is extremely plausible. It is a very serious account, one of eminently measurable sincerity.» — el narrador; el argumento que sigue es que quien quisiera celebrar a un ser bueno no habría escrito matanzas.
«The biblical story may be able to cast light on many aspects of our most remote past, but on one condition: that it be free from any ideological and cultural filters of our age and of those that preceded it.» — el narrador enuncia la condición de la lectura que el libro propone.
«According to scientists, the Earth has existed for four and a half billion years.» — el narrador.
«The great religions claiming to “reveal” our origins to us, however, are only 2,500 years old.» — el narrador contrapone las dos escalas para medir el alcance de lo que las religiones dicen revelar.
«The work of Mauro Biglino is notable for the relentless precision with which it demolishes commonly-held beliefs, solidified by religious interpretations of the ancient texts.» — el narrador.
«In the Hebrew text, “the angel of the Lord” does not appear. What does appear is “Yahweh’s Malach”, which sounds very different.» — el narrador.
«The transformation of the Malachim into spiritual entities,” Biglino states, “took place during the theological elaborations carried out by the Church Fathers, during the first centuries of the common era.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, fecha la espiritualización en los primeros siglos.
«This transformation,” he adds, “goes hand in hand with the one that led to the transmutation of Yahweh, the ruler of the Israelites, into a unique transcendent being and a spiritual, omnipotent, omniscient entity.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: las dos transformaciones, la de los ángeles y la de Yahweh, serían una sola operación.
«This is what happened. Theology created a spiritual world with ‘the angels of the Lord’, rather than the biblical ‘Malach of Yahweh’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The term ‘archangel’ refers to a specific function within the military hierarchy of the Elohim and the Malachim. The archangels were those who held the higher ranks, standing in command over all the other angels.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: arcángel sería un grado, no una especie.
«Mikael is defined as ‘one of the first commanders’, precisely to underline» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente comparando a Miguel con un general de ejército.
«They were individuals similar to us, but always tall. Very light, shiny eyes. And blond hair, sometimes reddish.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la fisonomía que atribuye a Elohim y Malachim.
«The figure of Noah turns out to be really special within the dynasty of antediluvian patriarchs. After the children of the Elohim had joined with the females of the Adamites, a series of events occurred on Earth that was displeasing to the leaders of the Elohim. So their leaders decided to get rid of that part of the human race, sparing only Noah and his family.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«His father, Lamech, saw that the baby had very white skin, with red-blond hair and eyes so clear, big and bright, that they seemed to light up the room.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando el Libro etíope de Enoc sobre el nacimiento de Noé.
«Noah was one of the children that the Elohim had produced through their direct intervention, giving him their genetic makeup.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It served the purpose of ‘cleansing’ the Earth (or at least that region) of the ‘serpent lineage’, which must have spread rampantly, ruining the very selective initial plans of the Gan Eden geneticists.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre para qué habría servido el diluvio.
«Or worse, the so-called Deluge may have been created in an even more artificial manner, with the strategic sudden opening of a dam.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el condicional en la frase.
«Allow me to point something out. In the Bible, ‘the archangel Gabriel’ doesn’t do anything. It is the Ghever-El that act. This was a specific category of individuals, special ‘archangels’» — Biglino, entrecomillado: Gabriel sería una categoría de individuos y no una persona.
«The name ‘Gabriel’ itself derives from Ghever-El, which mean ‘the power of an El» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la etimología con que sostiene esa lectura; la concordancia which mean va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The first intervention of this sort, Biglino reminds us, was with Abraham’s wife, Sarah, who was unable to have children. In this case, the problemsolver is not “Gabriel”, since Sarah gets pregnant after being “visited” by» — el narrador; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente nombrando a Yahweh, y la fuente parte problem-solver a fin de renglón.
«Samson was born after his mother had been visited by an ‘angel’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«And an interesting thing to note here is that the same thing happens in the tales of other ancient civilizations as well. When divinities came to visit women, they often gave birth to twins.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is particularly interesting to note that the exact same thing happens frequently even today in cases of assisted reproduction.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la frecuencia de gemelos en la reproducción asistida es su punto de comparación.
«Mary becomes pregnant after being visited by ‘Gabriel’, or rather a Ghever-El, who works on behalf of an El» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la respuesta sigue glosando ese Ghever-El como quien ejerce el poder por cuenta de un El.
«The Madonna would have become pregnant after having had a sexual encounter with one of them. This act was probably intended to restore royal dignity to a particular lineage, the dynasty of David, to which the kingdom had been promised.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el probably dentro de la frase.
«Technically, the child born in Bethlehem would be comparable to the Homeric heroes, those born of the union between a human being and one of the so-called divinities.» — el narrador.
«As the rabbis themselves write in their studies, many of the tales in the Book of Genesis are actually derived from Sumerian and Akkadian stories, and the story of Noah, in fact, can already be found in those tales.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«As in the Biblical account, the Sumerian Noah builds an ark to save himself and his family.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Utnapishtim o Ziusudra.
«This detail confirms, once more, how attracted those individuals were to the smoke produced by burnt animal fat.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el sacrificio del Noé sumerio.
«Noah plants a vineyard, later getting drunk on what he then produced from it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This action of planting a vineyard is clearly emphasized in the story, underscoring the importance of that particular cultivation and, by extension, the wine it produced.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Hebrew term Shakhar indicates the alcoholic beverage that Yahweh asked to be prepared for him nearly every day. So consumption appeared to be daily.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The daily amount of Shakhar consumed is difficult to determine,” says Biglino. “The numbers quoted in the Bible, though, suggest roughly 3 to 5 liters per day» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la cifra sale de un cálculo sobre el texto y él la da como aproximada.
«Reading the ancient texts,” Biglino summarizes, “highlights the importance that alcoholic beverages had for the so-called divinities. While Yahweh asked for the Shakhar, which could be identified as wine, the Sumerian-Akkadian gods preferably drank beer, brewed using fermented barley.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Biglino draws our attention to an extremely interesting hypothesis: wine and beer (vines and cereals) first appeared in the area of the Adamite’s so-called Eden.» — el narrador.
«These genetic variations led to the birth, in the Middle East, of cereals, and in particular of wheat, from which derive the varieties we use today to make flour.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In Central and South America, in the same “inexplicable” way, our common potato was developed from a variety that, before these genetic modifications, was inedible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Science says we will probably never know how things happened. The tales of the ancient people of those territories, though, clearly state that both cereals and potatoes were ‘a gift from the gods» — Biglino, entrecomillado: reconoce que la ciencia no podrá saberlo y pone al lado lo que dicen los relatos.
«It is well known that cereals are not appropriate food for hunters, who accumulate reserves of food by slaughtering prey. But barley, spelt and wheat are easily cultivated, so readily available. They are the ideal diet for individuals who labor continuously every day, thus requiring an equally constant caloric intake.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el cereal como dieta de trabajadores, no de cazadores.
«All this,” Biglino concludes, “makes the tales of the ancients credible. They tell us that these divinities worked to find nourishment for this new species of workers that they had ‘manufactured’ through genetic engineering.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Yes, the Bible clearly states the duration of the lives of these patriarchs, the descendants of Adam. They lived up to nine centuries. This is hardly accepted by official science.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, y consigna que la ciencia no lo acepta.
«In fact, if we accept that those patriarchs had a high level of the genetic material of the Elohim who ‘manufactured’ them, it is all easily explained: the Elohim had a life span of a few millennia.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la condicional dentro de la frase.
«All this becomes understandable and acceptable once we accept that the Elohim were capable of manipulating DNA.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«These techniques operate on telomeres, the tips of chromosomes. These chromosomal endings tend to shrink over time, and their shortening determines the ageing of our chromosomes, with the consequent ageing of our cells.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la investigación contemporánea que aduce como paralelo.
«An action carried out on these telomeres, one aimed at keeping their length intact, would allow chromosomes, and thus cells, to remain young.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the future, medicine will increasingly tend to move in this direction. It is believed that it will be possible for us to devise technologies that permit a kind of ‘periodic renewal’ of our genetic material, keeping it young over time.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is clear that, if we accept the idea of external genetic manipulation, many things are readily explainable.» — el narrador, con la condicional a la vista.
«That’s true. Darwinism has accustomed us to thinking that man, understood as sapiens, was formed over millennia through the normal and natural evolutionary process. In fat, though, as research in this field progresses, we are realizing more and more that this is not possible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía In fat va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Ten years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Wallace wrote to Darwin that the theory they had developed could not apply to Homo sapiens.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyándose en Alfred Russel Wallace.
«Studies and advancements in our knowledge of genetics highlight both the typology and frequency of certain mutations of the human genetic pool, mutations that seem to be rarely observed in nature.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They tell us that the so-called Gods operated genetically on already existing individuals present on our planet Earth. They modified their most intimate structure, DNA, incorporating their own.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: no creación desde cero sino modificación de un homínido previo.
«In effect, the gods wanted workers capable of understanding and carrying out increasingly complex orders.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el motivo que atribuye a la manipulación.
«The hypotheses concerning our origin are constantly evolving and changing, and going further and further back in time, even by the tens of thousands of years. Regarding intervention on the part of the gods, says Biglino, one can speculate that they began working at least 300,000 years ago, proceeding with continuous interventions to improve this new species they had “manufactured”.» — el narrador con Biglino: la fecha se da como especulación.
«Yes, like Dolly the sheep, cited by Professor Safran to evoke the ‘biblical’ precedents for cloning. Let’s take a look at ourselves, says Mauro Biglino. How are we structured? We have no claws, no fangs, no fur. There is not a single habitat on Earth in which a human being could survive without resorting to the construction of weapons, tools and clothing.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«No other animal species on this planet shares these conditions. Homo sapiens have certain characteristics that are typical of genetically modified species that are subsequently domesticated.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«One of these characteristics, explains Biglino, is neoteny: even as adults we continue to have physical traits typical of children.» — el narrador, sobre el primer rasgo que Biglino aduce.
«Another bit of evidence of manipulation and of the process of domestication is seen in the genetic mutations encountered in human makeup. One example of these is ‘Robertsonian translocation’, identified on two chromosomes of the previous species.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la fuente parte make-up a fin de renglón y el índice devuelve la palabra unida.
«This ‘translocation’ led to the formation of our genetic material, made up of only 46 chromosomes instead of the previous 48.» — el narrador, sobre el paso de 48 a 46 cromosomas.
«These mutations are quite evident and they concern the color of our skin, the drastic reduction of body hair, the lack of fangs, the absence of claws and the presence of moderately reduced sensory abilities, none of the senses stronger than the others.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«With hair that might grow to over a meter in length, how could anyone easily evade a predator in the tangle of the woods, or swim in a river?» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el crecimiento del cabello como rasgo inútil para la supervivencia.
«Tertullian also remarked on this singular, embarrassing characteristic of the so-called angels.» — el narrador, sobre el interés de los ángeles por el cabello largo, que antes atribuyó a Pablo.
«We are the animal least suited to planet Earth,” Biglio succinctly states.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía Biglio va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Each living species has its own specific ecological niche to which it is naturally suited. Man, on the other hand, is by nature unsuitable to any of the environments present on the planet. And so he was forced to adapt to all of» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con las prótesis tecnológicas que compensarían esa inadaptación.
«Surprising information about the Cherubs and the ‘celestial chariots’,” says Mauro Biglino, “can be found in Professor Luigi Moraldi’s 1986 edition of the Qumran texts, published by Utet in Turin.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, declarando de dónde saca el material.
«we can read in those texts that in the house of God there is a so-called ‘blessing breeze’ produced by the Cherubim» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los rollos del mar Muerto.
«The sound of the breeze of blessing,” it is written, “joins the tumult of their march, and they praise holiness as they retrace their steps» — texto de Qumrán en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«When the cherubs stop, the “breeze” ceases along with the “sound”. And since when has God had “chariots” and encampments» — el narrador: la brisa y el ruido cesan cuando el aparato se detiene, y de ahí saca su pregunta.
«The Bible speaks of them in chapter 32 of Genesis. Jacob sees at least two of them and immediately distances himself from them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los campamentos.
«Among the various theses attempting to explain the origin and provenance of UFOs are those of ufologists who maintain that, if it could be unequivocally proven that they are of extraterrestrial nature, it would indicate that our species originated with creatures from “elsewhere” who were able to manipulate DNA and “play” with genetics, experimenting with making new species that were intelligent and similar to their “creators.”» — el narrador atribuye la tesis a ufólogos y la enuncia bajo condicional.
«Workers just smart enough to understand their orders and, over time, carry out increasingly complex tasks.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el propósito que atribuye a la fabricación.
«The Anunnaki (the Mesopotamian “cousins” of the biblical Elohim) at one point had to deal with a dangerous revolt by their own workers, who were forced to toil in the gold mines» — el narrador, sobre el relato sumerio de la revuelta en las minas.
«The solution was to replace the Anunna miners with workers “manufactured” by hybridizing the hominids (Homo erectus, Homo habilis) with their alien DNA.» — el narrador: la hibridación se presenta como respuesta a un problema laboral.
«Biglino admits that it is impossible to make a categorical pronouncement on this matter. The Old Testament does not speak specifically of extraterrestrials. The possibly “alien” origin of the Elohim can be reasoned and deduced but not ascertained by documentation.» — el narrador declara el límite documental de toda la hipótesis.
«Both are astrophysicists, as well as Jesuits, who have headed up the powerful Mount Graham, Arizona astronomical observatory, specialized in the study of exobiology, or extraterrestrial life.» — el narrador, sobre José Gabriel Funes y Guy Consolmagno.
«Equally remarkable,” Biglino adds, “are the explicit statements made by these two Jesuit astrophysicists, as if they wanted to tell us something to prepare us» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Simply put, that an eventual encounter with those they call ‘our brothers from space’ is inevitable, To the point that, if asked, they would not hesitate to baptize them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, resumiendo lo que atribuye a esos dos jesuitas.
«Until a few years ago, I was resigned to the idea of not having enough time to gather incontrovertible proof of the hypotheses I was so passionate about and which I had spent so many years researching, and to which I had dedicated so much study and work. Now, though,” confides Mauro Biglino, “I have the feeling that something unthinkable may finally be at hand: definitive proof that that our history must be completely rewritten, from top to bottom» — Biglino, entrecomillado: reconoce que aún no tiene prueba y dice esperarla.
«Academia still struggles to accept those in Visoko, in Bosnia. They are enormous and date back about 30,000 years.» — el narrador; consigna que la academia no acepta las pirámides de Bosnia y las da por buenas de todos modos.
«With its grandiose pyramid temples, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the ancient world. At its peak, it is estimated that it had 130,000 inhabitants, housed in multi-storey buildings that could accommodate numerous families.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«And how can the presence of a mineral like mica, be explained? According to experts, it could only have been extracted from mines in Brazil some 3000 miles away» — el narrador, sobre la mica de Teotihuacán; el dato queda pendiente de cotejo.
«The spiritual reworking of ancient texts, the scholar reiterates, dates back to 5-400 BC. At that time, in the case of the Jews, the type of relationship with Yahweh changed. Before this, it was essentially a question of obeying the leader’s directives, an operational premise for improving the material well-being of the community in the immediate future. Suddenly, the absolute value of obedience changed, the relationship now governed by a system balancing rewards and punishments, as if it were a matter of remaining faithful to principles that were no longer simply physical, but metaphysical as well.» — el narrador expone el giro que Biglino data en los siglos V y IV a. C.
«This spiritualist reinterpretation,” explains Biglino, “is analogous to what was happening at the same time in other parts of the world in the 5th century BCE.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In Hinduism, for example, there was a spiritualist re-reading of the Vedas, though they increasingly seem to be texts containing very precise historical and scientific knowledge.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In parallel to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were established. There were other forms of thought, from which only Buddhism seems to have» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente.
«In any case, even Buddhism permitted a certain degree of control over people, who isolated themselves from the rest of society or at least lived in a way that essentially discounted rebellion.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«At the same time, Lao Tze and Confucius appeared in China.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The new Jewish monotheism, Buddhist “rebirth”, Hindu reincarnation, Jainism’s metempsychosis, Chinese proto-pacifism: all these currents of thought appear practically in the same period.» — el narrador: la simultaneidad es el dato sobre el que se levanta la hipótesis.
«This, in fact, permits us to hypothesize the existence of a sort of global management.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el verbo hipotetizar en la propia frase.
«This hypothetical single management,” Biglion reasons, “established this new system of control over populations, who were thus led to believe that their fate did not depend on the their earthly rulers.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; las grafías Biglion y the their van tal como las imprime la fuente.
«These new forms of social control,” Biglino observes, “proved to be extremely effective, above all because they responded, though in different ways, to the mother of all our anxieties: the fear of death.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Religions have established themselves as bearers of truth, often unquestionable, but able to solve the problems of human life, providing explanations for suffering and death» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Giving meaning to these negative aspects of life, which we have difficulty accepting, especially when they appear to be unjustified, is precisely what has allowed these systems of control to govern us effectively for at least 2500 years.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: dar sentido al sufrimiento sería el rendimiento del sistema.
«No form of dictatorship has ever managed to last so long. The duration of the most despotic forms of government is, in fact, truly ridiculous, compared to the duration of religions.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Whoever invented religions,” says Biglino, “clearly had a great understanding of the human mind. And he, or they, were able to elaborate a message that made it possible to control people.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; deja en plural indeterminado a quienes lo hicieron.
«Through intermediaries who claimed (and claim) that their power is derived directly from divinities, entities who live in a transcendent world and are thus inaccessible to all of humanity, except through mediators.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la inaccesibilidad de lo trascendente es lo que vuelve necesario al mediador.
«Of course they have. They are the ones holdings power because they are the holders of knowledge.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía holdings va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Let us also pray for the perfidious Jews, so that the God our Lord shall remove the veil from their hearts and they too may recognize Jesus Christ our Lord.» — fórmula del misal romano en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«Thus reads the Roman-Latin missal edited by Edmondo Battisti in 1921. This formula still echoes the ancient accusation of “deicide” with which the Jews have been reproached since the sixth century.» — el narrador fecha la fórmula y su antecedente.
«The “perfidy” of the Jews was finally abolished from the ceremonial, but only in 1959, by the “Kind Pope”, John XXIII.» — el narrador.
«If it’s true that God had established that the redemption of mankind required the sacrifice of his son, Christians should actually thank, if not ‘sanctify’, the Jews for making the success of that divine plan possible. Without that famous death sentence, there would have been no resurrection and thus no salvation for humanity.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: vuelve la acusación de deicidio contra su propia lógica.
«The legendary historical falsehood of the “Jewish-Masonic conspiracy” as set out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document fabricated in 1903 by the Tsar’s police, is eerily having a come-back, thanks to a certain contemporary conspiracy frenzy, the same that blames the Rothschild bankers for all the evils in the world.» — el narrador nombra los Protocolos como falsificación policial y se desmarca del conspiracionismo antisemita.
«This is the same Bible that Mauro Biglino strips of the false vestments introduced over centuries by theological interpretation that was often based on translations that were unreliable, if not blatantly artificial.» — el narrador.
«Many of Biglino’s “discoveries” (“which are not ‘discoveries’ at all”) are easily validated by Jewish exegesis.» — el narrador, recogiendo dentro del paréntesis la corrección que Biglino repite.
«Jews have always known about some of these things,” says Biglino. “Are you wondering why they don’t publicly clarify them? I’ll answer that with a question: why should they? In the end, the Bible is their book, written by them, in their language, concerning their history.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is certainly not the Jews’ fault if others have adopted that book and manipulated it to establish another religion, to then go so far as to accuse the heirs of the biblical tradition of “deicide”.» — el narrador.
«The girl Isaiah speaks of is not a virgin and her name is not Mary.» — el narrador resume así lo que la obra sostiene sobre Isaías 7.
«There has always been this small problem: this very famous collection of ancient texts commonly called “the Bible” is never the same. It has constantly changed, over time but also over space.» — el narrador.
«The Bible,” Biglino explains, “is composed differently, depending on the current of religious thought of those heading up the effort.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Christian Canon has almost twice as many books as the Hebrew one, and they differ in how they are organized as well.» — el narrador.
«Take for example the Book of Daniel. For the Christians, it is a prophetic text, while for the Jews it belongs to the simple Writings.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el mismo libro cambia de estatuto según el canon.
«The Jews consider this Bible as absolutely apocryphal. They regard the Septuagint as a kind of disaster, a panoply of mistranslations, with many passages arbitrarily introducing spiritual concepts that are absent in the Hebrew text from which it was derived.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la Septuaginta que los ortodoxos toman por base.
«The Samaritans are another case. They consider only the first 6 books of the Old Testament to be canonical, and in the Samaritan Bible these 6 books present about 2,000 variants, compared to the same books contained in the Jewish Canon.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Simple: the Bible we believe to be ‘true’ depends on where we were born. Every believer has someone telling them which books to believe and which they must consider as apocryphal.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It must be said that we do not know exactly when it was written. What we do know is that, in all probability, it was re-written during and after the» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con la cautividad babilónica.
«In reality,” says Biglino, “there are also fragments that seem to belong to the eighth century BCE, so dating back to at least a hundred years earlier.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«What we have are copies of copies of other copies. So what we know – as the Israelite exegetes themselves say – is that» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra tras el corte de plana diciendo que la Biblia que hoy se lee no es la original.
«Its objective is to collect all the texts spread throughout the world, inorder to try to reconstruct a Bible that is as close as possible to the original one.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el Bible Project; la fuente parte in order a fin de renglón y el índice devuelve la palabra unida.
«It’s estimated that we will need bout two centuries to complete this work.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía bout va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The ‘origin stories’ are, in fact, copies of previous Sumerian-Akkadian stories, and thus copies of texts that Jews in exile in Babylon re-worked, especially regarding the ‘construction’ of the first Adamites in the Gan Eden.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«For example, the Book of Leviticus, “although attributed to Moses,” actually “seems to have been written in 600 BC by priests from the kingdom of Israel who traveled down towards the kingdom of Judah after the arrival of the Assyrians.”» — Biglino, entrecomillado dentro de la prosa del narrador.
«Leviticus was surreptitiously placed in the walls of the Temple, to then be ‘discovered’, thus giving them the credit of an antiquity that it did not really possess.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el hallazgo del libro en el Templo se lee como puesta en escena.
«I would say the descendants of the family of Jacob, those we know as the Israelites. They are the ones who intended to safeguard the memory of the events relating to the pact they had established with their Lord, Yahweh, the Elohim to whom they had been entrusted by their commander, Elyon. So it is a book that was intended to preserve the memory of the events associated with one of the many Jewish families.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el libro sería crónica de una familia, no de la humanidad.
«If we are to imagine a language other than ancient Hebrew, we must necessarily think of Aramaic, which was essentially the international language of the time, very much like English is today.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la lengua original posible.
«The Qumran texts were found by a shepherd who had been going there with his flock for some time. One day he threw a stone into a cave and heard the sound of a vase breaking.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Regarding their importance, it must be said that the Qumran texts are very useful for making comparisons with the Masoretic Bible, the one that was definitively compiled between the 6th and 9th centuries CE.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«But the element that makes them particularly significant is the picture they offer us. They are very useful for understanding the origins of Christianity, possibly quite different from those that are traditionally narrated and transmitted.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; antes ha advertido que esos textos son de un grupo disidente y que hay que leerlos con eso a la vista.
«But we cannot be certain, not least because every time the texts were copied, they were partially changed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la atribución de los libros.
«Just think of the Book of Isaiah or the Pentateuch, which tradition attributes to Moses but which certainly could not have been written by him, since at the time of Moses, the Hebrew language did not even exist.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Given the period of composition that can be hypothesized for the Torah, we must assume that the authors wrote in an Assyrian-Babylonian (especially Babylonian) context. This perhaps also explains the anti-Egyptian sentiment inspiring most of the accounts in the Pentateuch, starting with the description of the so-called slavery in Egypt. Writing while under the rule of the Babylonians meant trying to win their goodwill.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el antiegipcianismo del texto se explicaría por quién mandaba cuando se escribió.
«After the liberation, the period of the ‘Babylonian Captivity’ was also revised and reinterpreted as the infliction of divine punishment. Afterwards, Babylon was also seen as an enemy of the Jewish people.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The ancient Jews are not remembered for any particular feats of any kind.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la presencia del pueblo judío en la historia antigua fuera de la Biblia.
«What is certain, says Biglino, is that most of the so-called Jews present in the world today, especially in Europe, are actually the descendants of the members of the Khazar Empire, which had converted en masse to Judaism for reasons of political and economic convenience.» — el narrador atribuye a Biglino la tesis jázara sobre el origen de los judíos europeos.
«It is necessary to specify here that the Bible speaks of the Adamites as a particularly special people, one that had a high percentage of Elohim genetic material. So it seems correct to assume that the Genesis story refers not to the ‘manufacturing’ of mankind as a whole, but only to the production and introduction of that particular lineage into the Gan Eden.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: acota que el Génesis no habla de la especie entera sino de un linaje.
«The story of Adam can be placed in the 5th millennium BCE. Next we» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente con los patriarcas y sus vidas superpuestas.
«Biglino also reminds us that, according to the Talmud, Noah was not Jewish.» — el narrador.
«The history of the Jews begins at a much later time, with their eponym called Eber, from whom the Ibrihim derive.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The events of his life can be placed at around 2000 BCE, the period of the great war that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, situando a Abraham.
«If he did, it is very likely that Abraham, considering his place of origin, was actually a Sumerian.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la condicional y el probabilismo dentro de la frase.
«According to some Hebrew exegesis, Abraham was never born. The character may have been could have been fabricated in order to have a forefather.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, consignando la posición contraria; la duplicación may have been could have been va tal cual.
«It was given to him by the Elohim assigned to him, and it means ‘father of a multitude’. This was the first phase in keeping the promise made to him.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el nombre de Abraham.
«No, not everyone. Jewish theology does not doubt his existence. He is considered the historically-established father of the Jewish people.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: consigna que la teología judía no comparte la duda, y no la armoniza con la anterior.
«This event can be placed between 1400 and 1200 BCE. After the exodus, there is the period of the wars of conquest of the land of Canaan, followed by the period of David and Solomon, which may have been around 1000 BCE.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la cronología que propone.
«This subject is much debated,” Biglino admits, “because unfortunately, there is not much archaeological evidence that can attest indisputably to the existence of the various kings of Judah and Israel. Some claim to have found traces of Solomon’s great constructions, but even these findings, too, are debunked more often than not.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la falta de respaldo arqueológico.
«What is certain is that, if they did indeed exist, David and Solomon ruled over so-called kingdoms that were actually little more than tribal in size. It has been shown that the figure of Solomon was greatly magnified and mythologized, for the purpose of placing a character capable of holding his own against the great rulers of other people at the origins of the kingdom and its dominion over the land of Canaan.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«First the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel, then the Babylonians took Judah.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Now we move on to the Hellenistic period, which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great, and then finally on to the Roman conquest, which put an end to any dreams of independence.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It was a set of books that had been continuously copied, modified and reworked. This went on nearly into almost our own times, since it was only in the Middle Ages that the Masoretes introduced the vowels.» — el narrador: la vocalización masorética es medieval.
«And only then did the tetragrammaton “YHWH” become Yahweh.» — el narrador: la forma vocalizada del nombre es tardía.
«Cuts, additions, interpolations. Whole books made to disappear, cited but nowhere to be found.» — el narrador abre el capítulo con el inventario de operaciones sobre el texto.
«If we think of the fact that a large part of the Bible was written during the period of 6th century BCE exile in Babylon, we must assume that the manipulation took place in the following centuries.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«For example, when the Bible was under the control of the Pharisees, the drafters made sure to insert elements implying life after death because they believed in this. The upper echelons of the priesthood, all Sadducees, thought that everything ended with death.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la disputa entre fariseos y saduceos habría dejado huella en el texto mismo.
«We must keep in mind that every master who ever held a Bible in his hands – to be copied or dictated to his scribes – could in fact have inserted elements of his taste, reflecting his own way of seeing things.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Hebrews who lived in Egypt, and more precisely in Alexandria, had a sort of inferiority complex in the face of the intellectuals and men of Greek culture,” who possessed a series of very important and highly-regarded literary texts.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el móvil que atribuye a la Septuaginta.
«The drafting of the Bible in Greek,” Biglino reasons, “thus seems to have been carried out to place Jewish culture within Hellenistic culture.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Yes, this was the principal purpose of that draft. While the Bible in Hebrew had to justify the occupation of the land of Canaan, the Greek version needed to provide historical and literary – so, cultural – roots to Jewish thought.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: cada versión respondería a una necesidad distinta.
«Small proble: to find a place in that cultural climate, dominated by Platonism (which had opened a window to the Unseen) it was necessary to “adjust” the Hebrew text appropriately, even slightly deforming it, in order to open it up to metaphysics.» — el narrador; la grafía proble va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Many Jewish communities, including those in Italy, consider the work done by the Seventy as a kind of disgrace for humanity.» — el narrador.
«This is where the Kavod (Yahweh’s battle aircraft) becomes “doxa”, a teaching, while the Ruach (spaceship?) magically becomes “pneuma”, or spirit.» — el narrador nombra las dos sustituciones que a su juicio decidieron el resto; los paréntesis con la lectura tecnológica son suyos.
«Perhaps the most important element of this work was the use of the term ‘Deus’ to translate the Greek ‘Theos’ and the Hebrew ‘Elohim’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la Vulgata.
«It was only later that it was rendered a noun and the article was added. Its root refers to the verb meaning ‘the act of moving in space,’ as Plato himself reveals in his dialogue ‘Critias’. But it is also interesting to note its assonance with the Greek verb ‘theao, theaomai, which refers to the act of observing. The term ‘theory’ originally stood for ‘a group of individuals who observe’, a group of guardians, we might say.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre theos y su parentesco con el acto de observar.
«Exactly. This was the truly colossal manipulation of the substance of the biblical text.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el paso a Deus.
«This is the manipulation that it made it possible to bring monotheism to Western culture and religious thought.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Next phase: choosing one, and only one, of them and transforming him into a singular case, passing from polytheism to henotheism and finally arriving at monotheism.» — el narrador da la secuencia en tres tiempos.
«Fortunately I don’t deal with that,” Biglino smiles. “As I have often reiterated, I limit myself simply to exploring the biblical text, through a literal re-reading in Hebrew, with an open mind.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta antropológica por el origen del sentimiento religioso: se abstiene.
«Of course, Mauro Biglino has his own ideas about the emergence of Jewish, then Christian, monotheism. He considers it a blatant mystification» — el narrador; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente diciendo que esos textos no traen ni un indicio de monoteísmo.
«At most, we can speak of monolatry, where one divinity is chosen among many.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el término que propone es monolatría.
«That’s like saying that the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans were all simple-minded. They dominated Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, had immense conquests and achievements, and yet, poor fools, wasted their time worshipping» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra tras el corte de plana con las estatuillas de piedra.
«In no way negating the possibility of the he really exists,” Biglino explains, “I am forced to note that there is honestly no trace of him in the ancient texts.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la construcción of the he va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«I, of course, am full of doubt, and I have no certainties to ‘sell’. Though carefully argued, these are just my hypotheses. But I do know that it’s impossible to translate the term ‘Elohim’ as ‘God’, and that, whatever it may mean (and nobody knows that), we do know that it is plural.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: separa lo que declara hipótesis de lo único que da por sabido, el plural.
«I do not allow myself to discuss God. Ever. I only talk about what I seem to read in the Bible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, tras decir que respeta la fe y que lamentaría influir en ella.
«The Old Testament,” Biglino insists, “became important for Christians only after the Gospels were written and, above all, only after the work of Paul of Tarsus.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Old Testament is really a set of texts exclusively concerning the Jewish people, or better still, the family of Jacob-Israel.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is a book that tells the story of a family and their relationship with their ruler. And it has nothing to do with humanity, unless understood as a set of individuals and nations that Israel sooner or later will have to deal with, either as a ruler or as a Messiah responsible for the redemption of the entire human race.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is no coincidence that Jesus was not recognized as Messiah by the Jews and that his image was re-elaborated in a universalistic version and with a universalistic function.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The only certainty is that, at present, the historical existence of Christ is indemonstrable.» — el narrador.
«There are clues, of course, but no evidence. Yet the introduction of this narrative was so powerful that it led humanity to accept the recalculation its own chronology, counting years “before” and “after” the birth of Christ, an individual who may never even have existed.» — el narrador.
«I, though,” says Mauro Biglino, “am among those who think that the person the Gospels talk about actually existed. Then, of course, it’s a matter of understanding who he really was.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, se aparta de quienes niegan la existencia del personaje.
«A Jewish messianic rabbi, one of many at that time.” His name, to be precise, was Yehoshua ben Youssef. Literally, Joshua son of Joseph.» — Biglino entrecomillado y el narrador dando la forma del nombre que la obra usa en adelante.
«The name Joshua was very common at that time. The famous ‘son of Joseph’, or rather of Mary, was renamed Jesus precisely to distinguish him from the other countless Joshua’s.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It seems to be out of the ordinary, as we know, in that it was caused by the intervention of a ‘Gavriel’, who operates directly on Mary.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Joseph also fears for his own fate. He says that she was entrusted to him as a virgin,” and therefore to be kept as such. “Had someone seduced her? Joseph even speculates that it was someone who had passed himself off as one of those ‘messengers’ who had seduced her. And this helps us to understand the concrete reality of the event.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyándose en el Protoevangelio de Santiago.
«We can assume that his mission lasted many years, including a long period of silence when returned to his homeland, which was probably not» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente nombrando a Gamala en lugar de Nazaret.
«His family also resided there, a family of Zealots. One of its most important members was Judas the Zealot.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In his book Gods and Demigods, Biglino reports the hypothesis of some scholars that the substitution of Jesus’ place of origin (Nazareth instead of Gamala) may have served the purpose of removing Jesus from what was at the time the political center of anti-Roman resistance, embodied by the Zealots.» — el narrador atribuye a otros estudiosos la hipótesis del cambio de origen.
«Incidentally, Yehoshua ben Youssef never dreamed of founding a cult.» — el narrador.
«Yes, but for sedition. And he wasn’t 33, he was well over 40 (he was probably born 43 years earlier» — el narrador: la condena habría sido política y la edad, mayor que la tradicional.
«Not at all. He was only interested in freeing his own people from imperial domination, but things went badly.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«No. He was knocked unconscious, probably by mandrake, as recommended by Hippocrates. The ‘soporific sponge’ with which he quenched his thirst a moment before losing consciousness must have been soaked in that special potion, already used by early surgeons as anesthesia. He could thus be lowered from the cross without breaking his legs, which would have cost him his life.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la esponja del relato se lee como anestesia.
«He was then treated in that alleged tomb with a massive dose of medicine, up to 45 kilos of substances. A very potent aloe and myrrh-based mixture, used not for the dead but for those wounded in battle.» — el narrador: la cantidad y el uso de los bálsamos son su indicio.
«After a few hours (not three days), he was then taken out of the cave by two individuals who, to reach him, had to move the heavy stone that blocked the entrance.» — el narrador.
«True Christians, says Thomas in his Imitation of Christ, are recognized by their actions.» — el narrador abre el capítulo con la Imitación de Cristo.
«Mauro Biglino unreservedly approves of this high moral message.» — el narrador: la objeción del libro no va contra el mensaje moral cristiano.
«If we all lived each day thinking only of being kind to each other, the problems of the world would be ended. Is there anything more beautiful than the idea of doing only good to one another» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Absolutely perfect,” says Biglino. “It’s just that I wonder if we really need someone to explain to us that good is better than evil.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: su reparo no es al precepto sino a que haga falta una revelación para enunciarlo.
«He verifies if the so-called Sacred Scriptures actually say what theology would have them say.» — el narrador define en una línea la operación del libro entero.
«To be clear, the Jesus of the Christians is presented as the son of the God of the Old Testament, committed to restoring eternal life to men, erasing their original sin. Now, what can we make of all this, if there has never been any question in the Bible of eternal life, not even before Adam and Eve? Not to mention that there is no mention of original sin in Genesis. What’s more, instead of God we find Yahweh.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la misión cristológica queda sin sujeto y sin objeto si se le quitan las dos nociones.
«No, the translator assures us. We are only reading what is actually written in those texts, without resorting to the filter of theological interpretations.» — el narrador.
«In Greek, it is clearly written ‘two more’ not ‘also two’. And these were not some petty chicken thieves but kakourgoi, a term used for guerrillas, for the anti-Roman political resistance.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los dos crucificados junto a Jesús.
«The deliberately erroneous translation – ‘also’ instead of ‘other’ – indicates clear intent: to sharply separate Jesus from the other two and to conceal his political character as a rebel. If ‘two other outlaws’ were crucified with him, it means he was classified in exactly the same way as they were.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«These are not ‘discoveries’, certainly not mine. They are words that have always been right under our nose.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«After resuming his activity, Yehoshua was captured and sentenced for purely political reasons. And when he is crucified, his people manage to prevent his bones from being broken, because in that case they would not have been able to save him» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«By making everyone believe he was dead, after having given him the ‘soporific sponge’ that produced an immediate loss of consciousness, they freed him from the cross and immediately took him to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«According to this hypothesis, the treatments worked, allowing for the apparent resurrection, or rather, the escape from the tomb.» — el narrador, con la palabra hipótesis en la propia frase.
«It says that during the night, a light came from the sky and two individuals emerged from that beam of light, rolled away the door of the tomb so they could enter it. Shortly afterwards, they came out with a third person, one who could not stand on his own.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando el Evangelio apócrifo de Pedro.
«That’s a matter of choice. The text shares the same historical sources as all the other Gospels: none.» — el narrador: el apócrifo no tiene menos respaldo que los canónicos porque ninguno lo tiene.
«Regarding the ascension of Jesus,” Biglino specifies, “we must say that it was not a voluntary ascension, but a real ‘assumption’ into the sky.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In Greek, all the verbs that speak of this event are in the passive form. So Jesus was literally ‘pulled up’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el argumento es de voz verbal.
«This rescue from the cross and the later ascension allow us to hypothesize that Jesus may have begun his mission in a certain way, and then, perhaps, changing the ‘rules of engagement’ during the course of it. So one might speculate that he allowed himself to be condemned, making sure, though, to avoid death. This is probably because, on his father’s side, he may really have been the son of one of the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con tres marcas de conjetura dentro de la misma respuesta.
«The Gospels tell us about the encounter between Jesus and ‘his adversary’, defined in Greek by the word ‘diabolos’ .» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Not really,” Biglino explains. “As in reality, some codices convey another concept that sounds more like this: ‘You come behind me» — Biglino, entrecomillado: algunos códices invertirían el sentido de la respuesta al tentador.
«In this way, Jesus would have affirmed that he was the one who had a mission to carry out, so if anything, the other Elohim would have had to adapt to that and follow his lead.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el episodio se lee como negociación entre Elohim y no como prueba moral.
«John the Baptist turns out to be a cousin of Jesus. His birth is similar to that of Yehoshua. It takes place after the meeting between a ‘Gavriel’ and his mother.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«So It would seem that the two were part of the same plan, a project requiring the birth of both a ‘priestly Messiah’ and a ‘royal’ one.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Reading the Gospels,” the scholar continues, “we understand that this was not about an ethical or spiritual conversion, as has been presented to us, but rather of the acceptance of what was about happen.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la metanoia; la elisión de to en about happen va tal cual.
«He was addressing everyone. And in particular, when he spoke about the Pharisees and the representatives of power, he said that they absolutely had to change their attitude. Otherwise, in the course of future events, they would have been killed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la advertencia del Bautista se lee como aviso de lo que va a pasar, no como reproche moral.
«The people who went to him openly confessed their so-called sins. They declared what they had been able to do for the messianic kingdom, which in those years was greatly anticipated by everyone.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la confesión sería declaración de méritos, no de culpas.
«John was effectively looking for fighters. He was selecting them. So in all likelihood, he was looking for them among those who had already committed violent acts, thus demonstrating their ability, their will to fight and their effectiveness in combat.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el bautismo como reclutamiento.
«Gehenna was the Hinnom Valley, a canyon just outside Jerusalem. The bodies of those condemned to death were thrown into it along with the garbage and waste that was constantly being burned there.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la Gehena como lugar geográfico, no como infierno.
«An army was being prepared to fight the ‘final battle’. And the corpses of the defeated would end up where garbage was burned 24 hours a day.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«To begin with, in all probability, Jesus was not responsible to the Elohim of the Old Testament. When he invoked the El, he was referring to someone else, because he himself said that no one had ever seen his father. And we know that Yahweh had been seen by many people. This allows us to realize that there is no textual foundation to theology’s claim concerning the existence in the Old Testament of ‘God the Father’ whose son was Jesus.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el padre invisible de los evangelios no podría ser el Yahweh visible del Antiguo Testamento.
«After having tried in vain to incite an insurrection and having fled to his homeland for a while, Jesus came back with a sort of social project for redeeming the poorest from the classes that exploited them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«One thing that appears to be certain is that he concerned himself exclusively with the people of Israel. There was absolutely nothing universal about his message.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«When he sends out his disciples to spread his message, he himself says to preach only ‘to the sheep of the house of Israel» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyando en el propio evangelio el carácter no universal del encargo.
«His mission, moreover, was a typically messianic one, concerning only his nation.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«St. Paul thus transformed that Jewish messianic rabbi into a master of cosmic significance.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«As far as eternal life is concerned, it is a concept foreign to the Semitic mentality. Even the Greek terms used to indicate so-called eternity really only» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente definiendo esa eternidad como un tiempo muy largo de duración desconocida.
«Of course. And I will add that Paul of Tarsus may not have been working alone. It is quite possible that he acted on behalf of important Jewish priestly families, those who had given the Temple treasures to the Romans in exchange for a rich and comfortable life in Rome. It is possible that these families, seeing that it would have been impossible to rebuild their Temple and the Jewish religion in Israel, wanted to experiment with this new form of religious thought, effective for keeping the people under control. Christianity would thus turn out to be a religion of Jewish origin.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con dos marcas de posibilidad y una conclusión que declara hipotética.
«I would say that the information we extracted from the Nag Hammadi literature is of fundamental importance,” says Biglino. “The existence of various Gospels, traced back to various disciples, leads us to believe that there were originally many communities that embraced (or said they embraced) the preaching of Jesus. And each of these claimed to be the only true holder of the truth, with each of these groups maintaining that Jesus had revealed it to the disciple they followed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la multiplicidad de evangelios indicaría multiplicidad de comunidades.
«Exactly the same way we read all the canonical gospels. We must necessarily ‘pretend’ that they are true.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: aplica a los apócrifos el mismo método que a los canónicos.
«It lies in the greater concreteness, at least as presented by the three synoptic Gospels. Mark, Matthew and Luke all seem to recount real moments in the life of this preacher. Much of the Nag Hammadi literature, on the other hand, seems to reflect a Gnostic mentality, so probably far from that of a Jewish messianic rabbi of the time, one with very concrete objectives.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la diferencia entre canónicos y gnósticos.
«It certainly does. Many characters had that experience in the so-called sacred texts. The oldest one, and thus the first, is Enoch. The Bible defines him as ‘one who constantly traveled with the Elohim.’ Literally, he went back and forth with the Elohim until they took him away for good.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Elijah appears to have been taken away by the Elohim in essentially the same way.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; añade que Elías y sus discípulos sabían de antemano que iba a embarcar en el Ruach.
«They said they were sure the Ruach would leave him somewhere, but they couldn’t find him.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la búsqueda de Elías por los discípulos.
«The Bible tells us that, at a certain point, Moses says that he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, so he decides to go and die in the land of Moab.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; añade que el texto lo presenta con plena salud al ir a morir.
«His grave has never been found. No tomb attributed to Moses has ever been the object of veneration, not even on the part of the Israelites.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la ausencia de culto funerario es su indicio.
«In his Jewish Antiquities, the historian writes that Moses – with his two most faithful associates, Eleazarus and Joshua – goes to the valley of Moab, where a ‘cloud’ arrives and Moses disappears into it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando a Flavio Josefo.
«In the Old Testament, ‘cloud’ was one of the terms used to describe the arrival of Yahweh’s Kavod.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la nube de Josefo se enlaza con el Kavod.
«Josephus continues by saying that Moses “was forced to write that he was» — el narrador; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente diciendo que Moisés escribió que estaba muerto para que nadie pensara que se había ido con los dioses.
«Exactly. And these are two people who, according to the Bible, never actually died.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Moisés y Elías en la transfiguración.
«Putting all these events and elements together,” Biglino surmises, “we can perhaps speculate that both Elijah and Moses were taken away by the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el perhaps y el speculate dentro de la frase.
«Precisely. We can assume that the Elohim, with their technology, were able to keep the people who were important to them alive for a very long time.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la longevidad tecnológica es lo que, en su lectura, pone a Moisés y a Elías en el monte Tabor.
«This, after all is Biglino’s hypothesis. What kind of story would we be faced with if we accepted the biblical account as an authentic and plausible narration, one of many, on the origins of humanity» — el narrador reformula la premisa del libro como pregunta condicional.
«The “snow” falls from a large greyish “cloud” shaped somewhat like a cigar, under which other smaller “clouds” that look like flying saucers are visible.» — el narrador describe así El milagro de la nieve, de Masolino da Panicale, fechado en 1428.
«Art history is full of similar apparently inexplicable references. It appears that the things being described are aircrafts.» — el narrador.
«The Nuremberg Manifesto is full of flying objects. This is a print by the engraver Hans Glaser depicting an alleged celestial event that was observed in the skies over the German city on April 14, 1561.» — el narrador.
«Glaser’s description is meticulous: “They flew in rows of three or four, forming squares while some discs flew on their own.”» — el narrador citando la hoja de Núremberg.
«The story is described by Samuel Koch in the Basel Flyer, which speaks of “large dark-colored discs» — el narrador, sobre el suceso de Basilea de 1566; el nombre del cronista queda pendiente de cotejo.
«There is one obvious anomaly: there were no airports at the time. The world was still on horseback and not even the steam engine had been invented yet.» — el narrador: el argumento es de anacronismo tecnológico.
«On July 2, 1947, eyewitnesses swore that they saw a kind of flying saucer in flames crash in the New Mexico countryside.» — el narrador, sobre Roswell.
«Thirty years later, Major Jesse Marcel (who had actually exhibited the wreckage of a weather balloon at the time) admitted that the authorities had lied.» — el narrador.
«I don’t deal in ufology”, Mauro Biglino tells us. “But I must point out that the matter is by no means unknown to some theologians, and even very famous ones.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: repite el deslinde y a la vez apunta a quiénes sí se ocupan del asunto.
«This is a perfectly admissible exercise, provided that we don’t claim to be “rummaging” through the pages of the Bible, something that Mauro Biglino himself has been doing for decades, with an irrepressible passion.» — el narrador acota qué parte del ejercicio es lícita.
«Sometimes,” he confesses, “I feel like I’m dealing with something much bigger than myself.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«A herculean enterprise, in fact. The whole of monotheistic theology purports to be based on the Old Testament.» — el narrador mide el tamaño de lo que la obra discute.
«In this case, the big difference is that no one ever dreamed of founding a religion based on the Homeric epics.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre por qué su caso no es el de Schliemann.
«The Bible had a very different destiny. It is not the text itself that is intrinsically unique, but the cultural, social and political edifice that derived from it.» — el narrador.
«Not at all. On the contrary, I am trying to restore the Bible’s integrity, with absolute respect for its textuality.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la acusación de maltratar el texto.
«At a certain point, you just want to throw in the towel. You tell yourself that no one is making you do this.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I admit that it was difficult to remain resolute in my convictions.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre una crisis reciente que el narrador acaba de referir.
«But it was exhausting. A mission like mine is not an easy one. You always have the feeling of violating a forbidden area, revealing what is available, theoretically, to everyone, if they only had the patience to read the texts for what they are, for what they say, without bias or ideological filters.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«in California a certain Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer, whose brand – one that was to become legendary – borrowed the most famous apple in history, the fruit from Genesis» — el narrador.
«It’s a terrible legacy. How much damage has this false idea caused over the centuries? The idea that man was born defective from the very start, marked from birth by a stain that goes back to the very origins of the species.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el legado del pecado original.
«He knows full well that in that bite of fruit, reproduced by Apple, there is a brilliant playful wink, almost a Promethean promise. It is an invitation to break the rules in order to gain knowledge.» — el narrador.
«Roswell scholars suggest that many of our technological advancements are of alien origin.» — el narrador atribuye la idea a estudiosos de Roswell y no la suscribe.
«And the beauty of all this, says Mauro Biglino, is that no one today is baffled by the sensational statements made by General Eshed.» — el narrador.
«On one hand, ufologists claim victory. On the other, among those who are barely blinking an eye are, rather unexpectedly, theologians.» — el narrador: quienes no se sorprenden son los teólogos, y ese es el asunto del capítulo.
«According to him, the Elohim are still here controlling us, and this belief, Biglino insists, is perfectly in line with the hypothesis of a superior dominant intelligence.» — el narrador, recogiendo lo que Biglino atribuye al pastor Downing.
«From Hans Küng on,” Biglino states, “there are many theologians who believe in the existence of superior intelligences coming from other worlds.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«One can imagine many things,” says Mauro Biglino, “if we ‘pretend’ that the ancient texts, rather than telling fairy tales, recount events that actually took place.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The light goes out, however, “if we insist on saying that these ancient authors just wrote in code» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado.
«That way, we deprive ourselves of any hope of understanding, of seeing the thread that connects everything in the history of the control of knowledge.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Ascension was a “specialty” apparently initiated by the legendary Zarathustra, the Iranian prophet and mystic, who is credited as the founder of Mazdeism, the oldest of the religions still in existence.» — el narrador.
«When exactly Zoroaster lived is not known, but he has traditionally been placed between the 11th and 7th centuries BCE. New philological analysis and recent archaeological findings, however, have led to various contemporary hypotheses that tend to place him even further back in time. He may have live during the Bronze Age, between the 18th and 15th centuries, in a geographical area stretching from Afghanistan to Turkmenistan.» — el narrador; la forma may have live va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«According to the Avestā, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, it was Angra Mainyu – later contracted as Ahriman and interpreted as the “spirit of evil” – who “fell to Earth» — el narrador.
«For Mazdeans, however, every human being always retains within himself an original scintilla of AhuraMazda, the “spirit of good”, whom Ahriman broke away from.» — el narrador.
«It is a religious thought that re-emerged in the Christian Middle Ages, when first the Balkan Bogomils and then the Cathars re-evaluated the idea that something had gone wrong at the very beginning, at the troubled origin of a world dominated by suffering, injustice, disease and death.» — el narrador traza la línea de bogomilos y cátaros hasta el dualismo iranio.
«The Cathars were excommunicated and branded as heretics, burned at the stake after having identified the divinity of the Old Testament as the heir of evil Ahriman.» — el narrador.
«The encounter with the “spirit of light” took place while 30-year-old Zoroaster was bathing in the waters of the Amu Darya river. Returning to shore, he met a luminous figure who introduced himself as Vohū Manah (Good Thought).» — el narrador.
«Yet another figure in flesh and blood, it seems, an archangel, the equivalent of the biblical “Gavriel”.» — el narrador aplica al relato mazdeo la misma lectura corpórea que a los Malachim.
«According to Mazdean tradition, Vohū Manah abducted Zarathustra and took him into the sky and into the presence of AhuraMazda.» — el narrador.
«It is worth noting that the matter was not resolved in a single meeting. The “revelation” required no fewer than seven ascensions. This is a suspicious number, one that those who study symbols would identify as a metaphorical key to indicate so-called enlightenment.» — el narrador consigna aquí la lectura simbólica como alternativa a la suya, sin descartarla.
«For Mazdeans and Cathars, the responsibility for evil is superhuman, attributable to Ahriman. For Christians, however, original sin is all ours (thanks, Adam and Eve» — el narrador contrapone las dos adjudicaciones del mal.
«Mauro Biglino points out that Christ’s salvific mission was – originally – restricted in scope, limited to his contemporaries.» — el narrador.
«The very first believers,” says the scholar, “passionately invoked the coming of the ‘kingdom of God’, as though were to be established at any moment. And it is precisely because Jesus was taking so long to reappear that at a certain point, Paul of Tarsus – to save the disciples from disappointment – began to elaborate the idea that the kingdom of heaven was no longer to be material and political, but spiritual. A perfect example of manipulation, not supported in any way by verifiable evidence from any source.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la espiritualización del Reino se explicaría por la demora del retorno.
«Yet that was precisely the current of Yehoshua ben Youssef’s preaching, assuming that he really existed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la reserva sobre la existencia dentro de la frase.
«But apparently it was precisely by them that he wanted to be recognized as the one who would free his people (and not humanity as a whole) from foreign domination.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Of course. For the Hebrew Bible, the long-awaited salvation is of a completely different kind. This is remarkable if we consider that, according to some exegetes, the Book of Wisdom was written even decades after the events that had taken place in Jerusalem, well after the famous crucifixion and resurrection.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«To begin with,” Biglino says, “the Book of Wisdom is not accepted in the Jewish Canon. It was composed in Greek by a Jewish writer, certainly Hellenized, so strongly influenced by Greek culture.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«According to tradition, it was written by Solomon himself, so around 1000 BCE. However, the Jerusalem Bible, the product of prestigious Dominican exegesis, specifies that the Book of Wisdom cites scripture according to the translation of the Seventy, the Bible written in Greek in Egypt in the third century BCE, so 800 years after Solomon.» — el narrador: la datación tradicional se cae por la propia exégesis católica.
«The exegesis of the Jerusalem Bible continues, stating that, “some terms used in the Book of Wisdom only come into common use at the time of the emperor Augustus» — el narrador.
«A whole series of references that seem to be historically placeable may, in fact, be evidence of a very late compiling of the Book of Wisdom.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is precisely the exodus that establishes the author of the Book of Wisdom’s faith in a God who will see to salvation.» — el narrador, recogiendo la observación de los biblistas dominicos.
«The whole of the Old Testament, according to Christian doctrine, acted as a sort of great funnel that starts with Adam and Eve, passes through the revelation to Abraham, then the revelation to the children of Abraham, and finally in the pact with Jacob. Gradually, all this preparation of so-called ‘sacred history’ is nothing other than the journey that inexorably leads to the culmination: the birth – but above all (obviously) the death and resurrection – of Christ.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, expone la lectura cristiana antes de medirla contra el último libro.
«Biglion explains that Wisdom is the last book of the Old Testament.» — el narrador; la grafía Biglion va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«So here is the question: “Why is it that the Book of Wisdom seems to know nothing of the resurrection? Yet that is exactly what one would expect: 2000 years of preparation, then the Book of Wisdom arrives saying, there we go, finally here we are – the time has come.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el silencio del último libro es su argumento.
«In this case, Biglino leans toward the most sensible explanation: that theology later intervened, taking possession of stories that originally had» — el narrador; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente diciendo que esas historias nada tenían que ver con la teología.
«In layman’s terms, the “salvation” imagined by the drafter of the Book of Wisdom has nothing to do with the idea of universal redemption later preached by Christianity.» — el narrador.
«To avoid pointless arguments, let’s just say that the Book of Wisdom was written at the time of Augustus, so immediately before the birth of Christ.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, tomando la datación más conservadora para no debilitar su argumento.
«And this is a fact: Wisdom does not mention the resurrection of Yehoshua at all.» — el narrador.
«How has he come to be counted as one of the children of God and to have his lot among the holy ones» — Sabiduría 5 en la versión que el libro reproduce; el plural de la fórmula es lo que la obra subraya.
«It means being one of the many who have been counted among the children of God, to the point of sharing in the inheritance, sharing his characteristics, along with those of the saints.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: contado entre los hijos no equivaldría a hijo unigénito.
«If Wisdom really intended to refer to Yehoshua in those verses, it seems to deny everything that is told about Jesus as the only begotten son, who died and rose from the dead.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la condicional dentro de la frase.
«We have a final judgment, which, however, has nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ. That is never mentioned.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This reminds me of what one of the Fathers of the Church, St. Justin Martyr, writes in his Apologies.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, trayendo a Justino como paralelo de esa clasificación.
«Biglino points out that this is the same “classification” we find in the Book of Wisdom.» — el narrador.
«Although it is the last written book of the Old Testament, it is not placed at the end of it, and perhaps that is no coincidence» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el lugar del libro en el canon católico.
«If Catholics were to carefully read all the books of the Old Testament in chronological order, at the end, right before the Gospels, they would find the Book of Wisdom. And inevitably they would ask themselves where is the annunciation of Jesus Christ? Where is the Jesus Christ who had been awaited for two thousand years? Wouldn’t he be here, in the Book of Wisdom, where, however, there is no mention at all of his resurrection» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«To people from asking inconvenient questions, the Book of Wisdom was placed elsewhere, several positions back, among the other wisdom books.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la elisión de keep tras To va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«And so the Old Testament in the Catholic Bible ends not with Wisdom but with the Book of Malachi.» — el narrador.
«Behold, I shall send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awesome Day of Yahweh comes,” Malachi continues. “He will reconcile parents to their children and children to their parents, to forestall my putting the country under the curse of destruction.”» — Malaquías en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«precepts and norms are destined for Israel, not for humanity as a whole. This is confirmed to us by the provisions transmitted at Horeb, or Mount Sinai» — Biglino, entrecomillado, cerrando con el mismo límite nacional.
«The liberation announced by Mazdeism can be understood as a sort of reconquering of the spirit, a return to the initial condition of bliss, of “paradise lost”. A happily perfect timelessness, shattered at the origin of history by the irruption of space-time and its merciless laws, so plainly reflected in the brutality of competition for food: the lion tearing apart the gazelle.» — el narrador.
«For dualistic religious thought, to later re-emerge in the Demiurge of the Gnostics and the Foreign God of the Cathars, living beings are the victims of a temporary imprisonment in matter. They are, in fact, refugees: they all come from a happy pre-existence, one to which they shall all return. In other words, no one is born alone, no one is truly an orphan. And there are no sins to pay for from the outset. If you believe that you come directly from the Heavenly Father, the random stumble into birth in the earthly world can only be seen as a bad accident.» — el narrador: en el dualismo no hay culpa inicial, y por eso lo contrapone al pecado original.
«It comes as no surprise, then, that the Cathars, interpreters of a radically overturned theology, were persecuted so harshly and with such zeal by the medieval Catholic Church.» — el narrador.
«Scholars observe the “heretical” character of Christian figures like Francis of Assisi, who, while in Egypt, came into contact with the Sufis and thus with the East. Among other things, Francis seems to have imported the tradition of the nativity scene to Europe, presenting Egyptian initiation in disguise, where the newborn is none other than the initiate, watched over by the two godparents of the rite, the Ox and the Donkey.» — el narrador atribuye a otros estudiosos la lectura iniciática del pesebre.
«where Plato summarized the key concept of his World of Ideas: it is the Invisible that gives birth to the Visible» — el narrador cierra en Platón el recorrido de las ideas desde el Amu Daria.
«Above all is the idea that in this “sacred book”, where Christians see the root of Christ’s divine mission, there is not the slightest trace of spirituality. This, at least, is what can be deduced through a literal reading.» — el narrador, y acota que la deducción vale para la lectura literal.
«There are strange gods with their “flying chariots”, but no World of Ideas. No eternal life, no pre-existence.» — el narrador contrapone el contenido del texto a lo que el dualismo esperaría.
«There is not even a hint of anything that refers to a possible, ethereal AhuraMazda. For the Cathars, though, Ahriman probably existed, assuming that the so-called chief deity of the Old Testament, the fearsome Yahweh, was indeed involved in the operation described in Genesis. It was in the “making” of the Adamites that the dualistic heretics saw yet another indication of the origin of what, for them, was the greatest of disasters, our birth in this material world.» — el narrador enlaza la fabricación de los Adamitas con la condena cátara de la materia.
«The Bible is always explicit, Biglino explains, and it is essentially concerns itself with telling us the story of Israel. More than religion, it deals in ethnography. Religion, if anything, comes later.» — el narrador; la construcción it is essentially concerns va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«On its own, the Bible is clear. It is certain exegetes who render it obscure, exegetes who, in my opinion, do not respect it at all, deforming it through their theological cultural filter.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Malachi has become a person’s name, but in fact it’s just a functional noun. It indicates a messenger. Textually, ‘my messenger’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: Malaquías sería un sustantivo funcional, no un nombre propio.
«At a certain point, Malachi was made to become a real person called by that name. But this is a later attribution, and it is not justified.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In theory, this is the fundamental event of salvation, yet there is no mention of it in these verses.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la ausencia de la resurrección en Sabiduría.
«For the Church of Rome, in fact, every human being comes into this world with the stain inherited from Adam and Eve. And only the mother of Christ was exempt from that stain from birth.» — el narrador expone el dogma antes de fecharlo.
«The event alluded to dates back two millennia, while the Marian dogma is quite recent, only proclaimed by Pius IX on December 8, 1854, with the papal bull, Ineffabilis Deus.» — el narrador: la distancia entre el hecho y su definición dogmática es el argumento.
«Mauro Biglino does not agree. He underlines how, according to historicaljournalistic sources, the fourteen-year-old Bernadette always used the Occitan term “aquero” (literally, “that one”) to indicate the small figure that had appeared in the cave.» — el narrador con la objeción de Biglino sobre Lourdes; la fuente parte historical-journalistic a fin de renglón y el índice devuelve la palabra unida.
«There is a strong suspicion that her words were appropriately “corrected” to help develop the new Marian devotion.» — el narrador, y lo formula como sospecha.
«In the Gospels, Mary of Nazareth (or perhaps of Gamala) is barely mentioned. To see her elevated to the rank of “Mother of God”, we must wait until 431 CE, the year of the Council of Ephesus.» — el narrador.
«Biglino’s position on this is clear. If original sin does not exist in Genesis, what possible need was there for the dogma defined by proclamation of Immaculate Conception» — el narrador enuncia el argumento en forma de pregunta.
«In summary, they agreed that original sin as presented to us by doctrine has no foundation in the Bible.» — el narrador, sobre la mesa redonda de Milán de 2016 con teólogos.
«According to Dominican exegesis at the French Biblical School of Jerusalem, the Adamites were not expelled from Gan Eden as a punishment but rather as a precaution.» — el narrador: el respaldo a la lectura preventiva viene de una exégesis católica.
«The metaphysical place of restorative atonement is an invention of Gregory the Great, dating back to just 593 CE.» — el narrador, sobre el Purgatorio.
«By the way, Orthodox Christians still do not believe in the existence of Purgatory at all,” notes Biglino.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Veneration of the crucifix itself dates back barely three centuries earlier. The Cathars despised the cross. They considered it macabre ostentation, almost an exaltation of a terrible torture.» — el narrador.
«Would you venerate the rope used to hang your father?” was one of the classic provocations the employed to challenge Catholics.» — el narrador citando a los cátaros; la elisión de they en the employed va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«For them, there was no link between the Nazarene and the Old Testament divinity.» — el narrador, sobre los cátaros.
«Following the massacres of the Albigensian Crusade at the beginning of the 13th century, the courts of the Holy Inquisition, established as early as 1184 at the Congress of Verona, ensured the extermination of the Cathars.» — el narrador.
«Hereritcal speakers in the Middle Ages also often repeated, “If he died on the cross, it means that he was not God» — el narrador; la grafía Hereritcal va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Christ did not die on the cross at all,” argued the adherents of medieval Docetism (from the Greek “dokein”, meaning “to seem”), which leaned towards a death on Calvary that was only simulated.» — el narrador, sobre el docetismo.
«These were much more than mere nuances, surviving well beyond the Edict of Thessalonica of 380 CE, in which the Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the only legal religion.» — el narrador.
«Only one: the official one. It had emerged in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, promoted by Constantine. This was the first unequivocal Roman doctrine certified by an Emperor.» — el narrador: la ortodoxia queda fijada por un emperador, no por un consenso previo.
«Early Christians were divided into dozens of sects, often in violent rivalry with each other.» — el narrador.
«For the Antidicomarianites and the Photinians, for example, Jesus was the natural son of both Joseph and Mary.» — el narrador.
«The Apollinarians did not believe that Jesus had a human soul. For the Carpocratians, Jesus was a man like us, though one with special powers. For the Monophysites, on the other hand, Christ’s human nature was merely apparent.» — el narrador: la lista de posiciones incompatibles es su argumento contra la idea de una doctrina única.
«The Nicolaitans flatly denied the divine nature of Jesus, just like the Ebionites, who also dismissed the credibility of his virgin birth.» — el narrador.
«In the year 415, during the embarrassing terrorist ferocity of the anti-pagan climate unleashed by Theodosius, it was Christian Parabalani monks who unhesitatingly slaughtered the philosopher Hypatia, the prestigious (female) director of the neo-Platonic school of Alexandria in Egypt.» — el narrador.
«For the Homousians of the first centuries, Father and Son were of the same substance, so the Son was “consubstantial” with the Father.» — el narrador.
«Like the followers of Arianism, they maintained that the Son was only “similar” to the Father. For the Anomians, however, Father and Son were not even similar.» — el narrador.
«Among the most radical positions was that of the Severian Christians. They rejected the Old Testament and even the resurrection of Christ.» — el narrador.
«This is still a theological fact,” Mauro Biglino points out, citing the New Catholic Encyclopedia. Jesus of Nazareth “died on the cross, was buried as a rebel under Pontius Pilate and then manifested himself as the Lord of Creation.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando una enciclopedia católica.
«But, Biglino points out, the encyclopedia goes on to state that “the hypothesis itself is historically indemonstrable.” It reads: “The context, that is the crucifixion of Jesus for reasons of sedition, is the object of historical evaluation.” The text concludes: “The stories of the resurrection, therefore, do not contain elements that can be the subject of historical research, as they are theological declarations.» — el narrador con la enciclopedia citada: el propio aparato católico separa lo histórico de lo teológico.
«What Biglino is leafing through is the edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia published in Detroit in 2006.» — el narrador da la edición exacta que se está citando.
«Yes, but on the condition that it be considered a purely theological truth and not a historical one.» — el narrador.
«Neither does he believe that Yehoshua actually died on that cross, assuming he really existed at all.» — el narrador, sobre lo que Biglino no acepta, con la reserva sobre la existencia incluida.
«Quoting the conclusions accepted by all biblical scholars,” Biglino summarizes, “it is believed that Jesus was born between 7 and 6 BCE» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I know,” Biglino admits. “It seems odd to say that Christ was born “before Christ”, but we’ve got to recognize the purely conventional nature of the date, though it does have historical elements that cannot be ignored.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Since we know from historical data (and from Josephus) that we can date the beginning of the construction of the Temple to 20 BCE, if we add 46 years we arrive at 26 CE. If we include the first and last years, let’s say that it could be 26-27 CE. So it is in this time frame that the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist and the expulsion of the merchants are to be placed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: fecha el bautismo por los cuarenta y seis años de obra del Templo que menciona Juan.
«John the Baptist was putting together an army of fighters. Baptism was the rite John used to mark the newcomers’ inclusion in his group.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the Gospel passage, the scholar points out, the expression “exomologoumenoi” is used. This, he explains, indicates that those who joined Jesus’ cousin on the banks of the Jordan did not do so to confess their sins, but to “celebrate” them» — el narrador con Biglino: el término griego es el apoyo léxico de la lectura militar del bautismo.
«So these were people who could truly guarantee that they were fit to join an army. The training of fighters was underway, fighters who would bring about the liberation of Israel from the foreign yoke.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«You are mistaken, some will say. Don’t you know that the Bible is an essentially cabalistic construction containing arcane keys to the great secret of life» — el narrador pone en boca de un objetor la lectura cabalística.
«All right, Biglino responds, nothing to object to. But he wonders why it is so distressing if, in parallel, we also engage in a literal re-reading of those ancient verses transcribed in Hebrew and continuously modified» — el narrador: la respuesta no niega la lectura cabalística, reclama sitio para la literal.
«It is impossible to speak of God, says the translator, in the face of the numerous Elohim, so similar to the Indian Devas and the Greco-Roman Theoi.» — el narrador.
«More than divine entities, these are rulers, higher beings who are powerful and long-lived, but not immortal, and technologically highly evolved.» — el narrador resume en una línea qué son los Elohim para la obra.
«One of them, Yahweh, gets assigned a single bloodline, the line of Jacob, who then takes care of keeping track of events.» — el narrador.
«It’s as though those texts had changed hands, no longer used to record the collective memory of a small Middle Eastern people (or, if you prefer, to allow initiates to pass on encrypted esoteric codes), but to serve as the foundation for a brand new more Western type of religion.» — el narrador; el paréntesis deja abierta la lectura iniciática como alternativa.
«The key? It’s theological: the new religion promised eternal life to all humanity, no longer just to small groups of the faithful, on an ethnic or national basis.» — el narrador: el paso de lo nacional a lo universal es lo que explica la difusión.
«The extent of the symbolic power contained in the story of the Son of God is literally incalculable.» — el narrador.
«In parallel, of course, we must also consider what might at first seem like side effects related to the adoption of the Cross by the powers-that-be. The conquest of the Americas alone, according to historians, cost tens of millions of lives.» — el narrador.
«Even the Gospels, which the Christian clergy “glued” to the Hebrew Bible to create continuity that suggested a direct link, have the same problems as the Old Testament scrolls: uncertain dating and the absence of any reliable sources.» — el narrador.
«Biglino evaluates the Gospel texts in exactly the same way as he does with the Old Testament: with the technical detachment required by a doubt-based scientific approach.» — el narrador.
«While the intent of the evangelists (both canonical and apocryphal) is very clear, fragments of a single – though contradictory – narrative hypothesis remain visible in the background, concentrated on the actions and words of one great protagonist.» — el narrador.
«If we apply the Biglino method to the New Testament writings as well, the mirror might reflect an image that is different from the traditional icon. But the portrait – as in the Old Testament –seems to be consistent.» — el narrador.
«In other words, what if that very special individual, theoretically the son of a woman and an El (or a Malach), had “simply” been charged with leading a reform project in the Middle East? It’s not even talking about the entire Middle East. In several passages, in fact, Yehoshua reiterates that his mission is addressed only “to the sheep of the house of Israel» — el narrador.
«This not a question of redeeming the whole of humanity, but – once again – just the line of Judah.» — el narrador; la elisión de is va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Yes, says Biglino. If we “pretend” that the text (Greek, in this case) is to be considered in a literal textual reading rather than symbolic one, we can discover things that are statements of fact.» — el narrador con Biglino: el método se aplica ahora al griego.
«Of course, the facts that emerge are not at all comfortable. They do not correspond to the image that tradition has built up over time.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«A baptism that looks nothing like a peaceful consecration. A man who does not go up to the gallows at 33, but much later.» — el narrador enumera lo que resulta de esa lectura.
«If we imagine that scene with the fishermen at the Sea of Galilee, we can see that it is believable only with the caveat that those men among the boats were old acquaintances of his.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They knew very well who he was because they were already been part of his group.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la construcción were already been va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Once again, Biglino advises us to “just pretend for a moment”, and for the sake of argument accept that the events narrated are based on things that really happened.» — el narrador.
«I repeat, this is a hypothesis I developed by stripping this figure of the faith-based contents that tradition has attributed to him. If we consider a few essential events of his public life, we end up with a whole different story. After chasing the merchants out of the Temple, he disappears. Then, following the death of John the Baptist, he re-enters the scene right with the recruitment of fishermen. This story’s deep meaning is regularly misunderstood, in my opinion, just like the story of the clash in the Temple.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, declarando hipótesis la reconstrucción entera.
«It was perfectly normal for the Temple of Jerusalem to be the epicenter of financial exchanges and trade. It had always been this way. The Temple was, in effect, the seat of state authority of the time» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el comercio en el Templo no era profanación sino función.
«Not exactly. On this occasion, he took it out on the weakest people.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si Jesús impugnaba ese sistema.
«He was furious with people working as money changers in the Temple. Or, for example, with those who sold doves and other small animals, which people – by law – had to sacrifice to the Temple, to God and the priests.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«During Passover,” Biglino explains, “all Jews had to go to the Temple of Jerusalem to make sacrifices. There were some that came from very far away, so rather than bringing the animals to be sacrificed with them and dragging them along for days, it was more convenient to buy them there.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Since it foreign currency was not permitted to enter the sacred building, it had to be exchanged for Temple coin. So, in that great mechanism of fiscal harassment that the people of Israel were subjected to, the money changers were the weak link. Without them, the poorest would never have been able to make their sacrifices. They would not have been able to exchange their money and enter the Temple to buy a dove and sacrifice it to fulfil their duty.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la forma Since it va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«No. He gets angry with those who made it possible for the poorest among the people to fulfil their religious obligations.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la ira habría caído sobre el eslabón débil y no sobre quien imponía el tributo.
«Mauro Biglino considers this episode “very strange,” a political faux pas, as we would say today.» — el narrador.
«By acting this way, it is quite possible that Yehoshua was hoping to gain the favor of the people. But the people did not follow him, and the Romans themselves didn’t pay any. They did not stop him, as though his actions were of no importance whatsoever.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la indiferencia romana es parte del argumento.
«According to certain calculations, his absence from Jerusalem may have lasted for about ten years. He returned ‘to the field’ only after the death of John the Baptist.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This would also explain why those who had sent him – the Elohim he worked for – allowed him to be condemned but kept him from dying.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«He said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.’ They instantly abandoned their nets and followed him.» — Mateo 4 en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«Let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of these fathers with families. They are on a boat and doing the job that the lives of their families, wives and children all depend on. At some point they see someone whom, we are told, they know absolutely nothing about. And he tells them, ‘I will make you fishers of men.’ And these people immediately, instantly, abandon everything – home and work, spouses and children – to follow this stranger. Can you imagine them running to tell their families, ‘Sorry, I found someone who told me that he will make me a fisher of men, so I’m go with him and you guys can take care of yourselves» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el argumento es de verosimilitud doméstica.
«Of course it doesn’t make sense because in this seems to have been a second call. The Galilean fishermen must have known Jesus quite well. They had already been on a mission with him. Then when the rabbi stopped his activity, they returned to their trade.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la construcción because in this va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Yes. This is when Jesus said, ‘The time has come to act, now it’s my turn.’ And remember that both he and his cousin were children of the intervention of a ‘Gabriel’, a figure exercising power on behalf of one of the Elohim, with a specific mission to accomplish.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«When Jesus learns that John the Baptist is dead, he knows that there is no more time to waste. He returns to summon his people, who promptly answer his call: ‘Here we are.’ Read this way, that lightning-fast response is understandable, as is the call itself. The time had come to fight and establish the ‘Kingdom of God’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This, Biglino insists, explains why people immediately joined him. It is a much more credible reason than the alleged ‘supernatural’ charisma of a leader making up for the glaring failure of his first move (against the Temple merchants), when he had certainly not shown himself to be infallible.» — el narrador: el criterio que se invoca es de verosimilitud, no de prueba.
«They appear to contain neither mysteries nor secrets, but rather some very precise facts. And quite credible ones at that, if stripped of their traditional garments.» — el narrador.
«His prodigious birth still bears the stamp of “Gavriel”, the archangel of the annunciation. The script is similar to that of the family of his cousin, John the Baptist. In that case, the Ghever-El first informed Zacharias, the husband of Elizabeth, mother of John.» — el narrador.
«Not only that, Biglino insists, but these strange “hybrid” origins echo those of the demigods and heroes of the Homeric tales.» — el narrador.
«The innumerable lovers of allegory see Jesus Christ simply as a sublime symbolic masterpiece, created to suggest to humanity the secret of his true essence, visible and invisible. The supreme mystery, the invincible power of love that conquers every possible fear, including the fear of death, experiencing – in life – true resurrection, eternal rebirth, the triumph of the Logos that transcends matter through even the most painful labors of earthly experience.» — el narrador expone la lectura alegórica con sus propios términos antes de que Biglino responda.
«I think I know all the interpretative keys that tradition has offered quite well, both exoteric, intended for all, and esoteric – for the few – including the many declinations of the Kabbalah.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: dice conocer esas claves y no discutirlas.
«The answer is obvious: because of the oldest books among them. Those of the Old Testament.» — el narrador, sobre por qué Biglino se queda en los libros antiguos.
«We are told that he died because of a woman, Salome, who performed a particularly erotic dance for the sovereign, Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Once seduced, Herod told her, ‘Ask me for whatever you want.’ And she demanded the head of John the Baptist.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, expone la versión recibida antes de discutirla.
«To arrive at a logical, credible explanation, we need to read Josephus, who in fact tells us something quite different.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«When others joined them – for they became highly agitated by his preaching – Herod feared his influence on people to be so great that it might lead to some uprising.» — Flavio Josefo en las Antigüedades judías, según la versión que el libro reproduce.
«Therefore Herod decided that it would be much better to take the initiative to have him killed before he was able to cause some revolution, than to get involved in matters once the revolt had begun, and then be sorry.» — Flavio Josefo en la misma versión: el motivo sería político y preventivo.
«John the Baptist’s fate, Biglino states, indirectly illuminates the political nature of the mission of his alter ego and cousin, Yehoshua.» — el narrador.
«Herod had taken the daughter of Aretha, king of Petra, as his wife. Then during a trip to Rome, at some point, he decided to repudiate her. Aretha’s daughter then took refuge with her father, who obviously decided to react by waging war on Herod. A battle ensued, and Herod was defeated.» — el narrador, sobre el episodio que le sirve de anclaje cronológico.
«Herod decided to take revenge and turned for help to the Roman emperor. Tiberius accepted and approved preparations for a military campaign against Aretha, but the operation was interrupted by the death of Tiberius.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la muerte de Tiberio en el año 37 fija el extremo de la serie.
«So we are in the year 36 CE. If we consider that even Catholic sources say that he must have been born either in 7 or 6 BCE, it is evident that, 36 years later, when he ended up on the cross, he must have been around 42 or 43 years old, not 33, as attributed to him by religious tradition. With all due respect to lovers of esoteric lore and symbology based on the number 33.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la edad tradicional se cae por aritmética, y el número 33 queda expresamente desmarcado de lo esotérico.
«In chapter 8 we read that Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees. At one point, he makes a very fiery statement that they cannot accept. So, they address him, saying, “You’re not yet even 50 years old. How dare you say these things» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Juan 8.
«Biglino observes, “Can one say ‘you are not yet even 50’ to someone who was at most 33? It would be more natural to accuse him of not yet having reached 40, not 50. A clear hint that he had to have been over 40 years of age.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el argumento es de uso corriente del lenguaje.
«In any case, he adds, it doesn’t much matter how old Yehoshua ben Youssef was when he was dragged to Calvary and crucified along with “two other outlaws.”» — el narrador.
«None whatsoever. His age is certainly not the most interesting aspect of the episode cited by John.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, desplazando el interés del dato de la edad al de la escena.
«The Pharisees. Or rather, the relationship with these masters. We are often told that these disputes were rather characteristic of Jesus, intent on fighting Pharaisism.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía Pharaisism va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Of course. The Pharisee masters were his colleagues. Disputes among the Pharisees were an age-old practice. Reading the Talmud makes this clear. This is how the Pharisees studied, based on the (very useful) method of contradictory arguments, fundamental for penetrating, in-depth study, questioning anything and everything. Exactly the opposite attitude of our religious tradition, which is based on dogmas. Our misunderstanding leads us to see Jesus as being generally confrontational with the Pharisees.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la disputa sería el método de esa escuela y no una ruptura con ella.
«How could he have been? He was one of them, in theory.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Of course: if we pretend he actually existed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: cierra el capítulo devolviendo todo el argumento al fingimiento metódico.
«Analyses by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope have just confirmed the predictions of the standard cosmological model, as have the most recent European revelations of the ESA’s Plank satellite: the universe has existed for some 13.8 billion years.» — el narrador; la grafía Plank va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The key to measuring the expansion of the cosmos seems to be the Hubble Constant, which is a value that identifies a precise relationship between the velocity at which galaxies are moving away from each other and the distance between them.» — el narrador.
«Those who translate the expression “Elohim” as “God” and decide to use the verb “create” to render “bara” – which never means “to create from nothing”, but is rather closer in significance to “to separate”, or in any case to operate on something that already exists.» — el narrador vuelve sobre bara para medir el Génesis contra la cifra cosmológica.
«In place of the “spirit”, we have the Ruach: a “wind” which in other biblical passages seems just like the unusual mighty gusts caused by a large aircraft.» — el narrador.
«The same expression, Biglino notes, is also used for the so-called ascension of Jesus Christ, the most famous of all “ascencions”.» — el narrador; la grafía ascencions va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Zarathustra comes to mind again, transported to heaven seven times in the presence of Ahura Mazda, thanks to the intervention – a physical one according to the Mazdean text – of an exceptional “space taxi driver”, Vohu Manah, the archangel of Good Thought.» — el narrador.
«In reality, the Zoroastrian Avesta speaks of a concrete, physical journey.» — el narrador.
«Ufologists have long been referring to these “assumptions” as “abductions”.» — el narrador nombra la equivalencia que la ufología propone entre los dos vocabularios.
«Scholars continue to believe that the emergence of the written language dates to 5000 years ago. First was the cuneiform alphabet, the one attributed to the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia.» — el narrador.
«Artefacts have emerged in Kibish, Ethiopia, near the Omo River, dating back almost 200,000 years.» — el narrador contrapone la antigüedad de la especie a la de la escritura.
«Describing the events of the lineage of Adam and Eve, set in Gan, the ‘walled and guarded garden’ located in the region of Eden, probably between Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, Genesis speaks only of the ‘manufacturing’ of the Adamites, a ‘race’ of particularly intelligent workers able to understand and perform the necessary instructions and work hard in place of the Elohim, who in that very same Gan experimented with the production of food, both animal and vegetable.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Bible writes that Adam, the male, “was placed in Gan Eden,” but it does not specify where he came from.» — el narrador.
«Perhaps,” says Biglino, “reality goes far beyond the imagination of those who built on top of it, embroidering it with spiritual, allegorical and symbolic meanings.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This is not just a vertical succession of famous descendants and firstborns, but also and above all the progressive and collateral substance of a real community, one in which great-grandchildren and great-grandparents were contemporaries, since each of them lived for almost a thousand years.» — el narrador: las edades se leen como superpuestas, no como sucesivas.
«Here the linear sequence is interrupted, since Enoch does not die and is simply taken away by the Elohim at the age of 365.» — el narrador.
«I repeat: if we divide them by ten, as some suggest we should do, then we would have to do the same for the ages of Abraham and Moses and take from» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente señalando que Abraham quedaría en diecisiete años y Moisés en doce.
«Yes, if we suppose that those earliest Adamites had genetic material that was very close to that of their initial ‘makers’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la suposición dentro de la frase.
«Rashi himself – recognized as the greatest and most authoritative of all Jewish commentators – recalls that Cain was born with a twin sister, while another two were born along with Abel. So twin births, typical of when the Elohim intervened in human reproduction through what today we would call assisted reproduction.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando a Rashi.
«One of the apostles is called Thomas, called ‘Didymus’. In Greek, ‘didymus’ means twin. In the Gospels, this is approached in way that could hardly be more explicit.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This, according to Biglino, could also explain the famous “kiss of Judas”, given to Christ to distinguish him from his alleged twin Thomas. Did the Roman soldiers really need the traitor to clearly indicate the right man arrest» — el narrador; la elisión de to en right man arrest va tal cual.
«Fine, but killed by whom? Weren’t Adam and Eve supposed to be our only ancestors, according to tradition» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el miedo de Caín.
«So to protect himself, what does Cain ask for? An identifying mark. As though his own parents wouldn’t recognize him» — Biglino, entrecomillado, contra la explicación por venganza familiar.
«And do you think the beasts refrained from attacking and devouring him just because of a mark on his forehead» — Biglino, entrecomillado, contra la explicación por fieras.
«Isn’t it more reasonable to think that Cain was actually afraid of meeting some normal Homo sapiens, who in comparison to them – the highly evolved Adamites – must have seemed like savages, something to stay far away from» — Biglino, entrecomillado: fuera del Gan ya habría otros humanos.
«When Adam was 130 years old,” we read, “he fathered a son in his image and likeness.» — Génesis en la versión que el libro reproduce, sobre el nacimiento de Set.
«But here – and only here – the expression that is used is the same one used for the forefathers, ‘manufactured’ with the Tselem of the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la fórmula reservada a los fabricados reaparece solo con Set.
«I insist: the long years of their lives should not be added together, they need to be considered as overlapping. Think of it this way: all those related individuals related knew each other very well and probably saw each other» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la duplicación individuals related va tal cual y la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente.
«It’s absolutely possible if we consider that they were all descended directly from the Elohim, who could live up to 20 or 30 thousand years.» — el narrador.
«Adam is “placed” in the garden, Eve is cloned, and perhaps even the birth of Seth is the result of this sort of intervention.» — el narrador.
«He only appears at the time of Seth’s offspring, but not before.» — el narrador, sobre Yahweh en el Génesis.
«In the first phase, evidently, there was still no need for the intervention of the warrior Elohim. Let us not forget that the Bible presents Yahweh as ‘Ish Milchamah’, literally “Man of War» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It’s a fact,” Biglino points out. “According to Genesis, for the first 235 years, Yahweh was neither named nor invoked. Evidently, he didn’t take part in the operations conducted in the Gan.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la cifra tomada de la propia cronología del texto.
«In the beginning, the Elohim probably worked in the Gan Eden, experimentally producing their own food, taking particular interest in this new ethnic group they had ‘made’ to work for them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Yahweh finally seems to be operational at the time of Abraham. That’s when we find him involved in the wars between the Elohim in the Middle East.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«From the Bible we learn, in fact, that the “Man of War” always had to introduce himself, declaring each time that he was the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.» — el narrador: la repetición de la presentación es el indicio.
«This question seems absolutely unthinkable if Moses had intended to address it to the one transcendent God.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la pregunta de Moisés por el nombre.
«We do not know in what language that name was pronounced, so we cannot even be sure of giving that name a proper meaning.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el tetragrámaton.
«Evidently,” Biglino surmises, “Yahweh didn’t really want to reveal himself, even though he continually felt the need to reiterate that he was the same figure who had presented himself to their fathers.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the Bible, it is Moses himself who reminds his followers that Yahweh had not made that covenant with their fathers. He was doing it exclusively with them at the time of the exodus.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: consigna la contradicción entre las dos declaraciones del texto sin resolverla.
«In fact,” concludes Biglino, “the Bible itself tells us that when they were in Mesopotamia, the first members of Abraham’s family dealt with other Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Old Testament later adds that during the exodus, Yahweh did everything by himself. It is written that “there was no foreign Elohim” with him.» — el narrador.
«It shouldn’t, says Mauro Biglino, since this is exactly what it says, right from the very first verses.» — el narrador.
«Enoch lived 365 years in all and walked with God, then he has never seen again because God took him,” and the very same thing will later happen to the prophet Elijah.» — Génesis en la versión que el libro reproduce; la construcción he has never seen again va tal cual.
«Because of his faith, Enoch was taken away so as not to experience death; and he was never found because God had taken him,” we read in the Letter to the Hebrews.» — la carta a los Hebreos, reproducida por el narrador como segundo testimonio del mismo episodio.
«As they were walking and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind,” writes the Book of Kings» — 2 Reyes en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«So the “usual” celestial chariot. This can be appreciated even better once the theological translation (“God”) is replaced by the original word, Elohim.» — el narrador: la sustitución del glosario final aplicada a un pasaje concreto.
«Not only does he not die, but he finds himself in the presence of none other than God himself, Just as Zarathustra had the honor of ending up before Ahura Mazda, face to face.» — el narrador empareja a Enoc con Zaratustra.
«In Mesopotamia, it is a Babylonian patriarch (the seventh, just like Enoch) who receives the revelation of the “divine secrets”. His name is Emmeduranki.» — el narrador da el antecedente mesopotámico del mismo patrón.
«It’s as though we were faced with a repeating pattern. The chosen one becomes a recipient of divine knowledge, initiated into the “celestial mysteries» — el narrador nombra el patrón: el elegido iniciado en los misterios celestes.
«The Book of Enoch has come down to us in various versions. The Ethiopian version, the most famous of all, is preserved by the Coptic Christians. Other versions, adopted by the Slavic world, are preserved in Orthodox monasteries in Serbia and Russia.» — el narrador.
«Like an ambassador suspended between heaven and earth, Enoch became an object of great interest during the Renaissance as well. In his Orlando Furioso, Ariosto places him in Eden along with Elijah.» — el narrador.
«Enoch is also found in contemporary literature. He appears in the last dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan in the book The Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, but he is also present in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and even in the best seller The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.» — el narrador traza la posteridad literaria de la figura.
«God will send his servants Elijah and Enoch, whom he has kept alive in Eden so that one day they will confound the Antichrist.» — palabras de dos frailes en El nombre de la rosa, reproducidas por el narrador.
«While Enoch says farewell to earthlings and leaves with the Elohim at the age of 365, a number that coincides with the number of days in a year, there is someone else who seems to allude to equally unusual arrivals.» — el narrador.
«Yared’s verbal root means ‘to descend’,” the scholar explains.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I believe that this name bears the memory of a great descent, an important descent.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el verbo creer en la propia frase.
«But it does tell us that, at a certain point, the sons of the Elohim saw that the daughters of the Adam were ‘tovot’ (beautiful, attractive, suitable) and took as many of them as they wanted as companions and wives.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Génesis 6.
«According to Biglino, the Great Flood was an “operation” by which the Elohim attempted to restore order to situation that had become unacceptably confusing as a result of those improper unions between human females and the male children of the Elohim.» — el narrador.
«We find it in the Apocrypha of the Old Testament – in the Book of the Watchers, to be specific – where it speaks of the 200 rebel angels who descended to Earth and took Adamite women as companions.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The “fallen angels” teach women science and technology, metallurgy, medicine, astronomy. They instruct them on how to build weapons, and even (genetics, once again) on how to breed animals of different species, resulting in hybrids like the mule.» — el narrador: lo transmitido sería conocimiento técnico reservado.
«When the sons of men had multiplied, in those days, beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. And the Watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget children for ourselves» — el Libro de los Vigilantes en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«The reading “they came down to Ardis” is wrong, Sincello reveals, because – as can be seen from the Aramaic or the Greek version – instead of reading “and they descended to Ardis,” it should read “and they descended at the time of Yared.» — el narrador atribuye la corrección al bizantino Giorgio Sincello.
«Bingo. “This was the descent,” concludes Biglino.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: esa enmienda es lo que enlaza el nombre de Yared con el episodio.
«It is St. Paul himself, moreover, who warns girls about “angel sex”. Their brutal impetuosity is also fully confirmed by this distinguished Hebrew commentator of the Bible.» — el narrador.
«This is all actually even more unacceptable. In practice,” Biglino summarizes, “what Rashi tells us is that the children of the Elohim came down and did whatever they wanted because they were so powerful. And they could couple with brides-to-be, newlyweds, with young males, and – even if it is hard to accept – with animals» — Biglino, entrecomillado, resumiendo a Rashi.
«Then,” we read, “the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years» — Génesis en la versión que el libro reproduce, con el límite de los ciento veinte años.
«Actually, the writers of Genesis did not question these problems, because they didn’t need to transmit the religious message that would be constructed afterwards.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They possessed a high percentage of the Elohim’s genetic makeup, so they lived very long lives, and this was perfectly normal. Then, at a certain point, the Elohim intervened and decided not to share their genetic material anymore. In fact, we can observe how the length of their lives gradually diminishes. It goes from 600 years to 500, then 400, all the way down to the lives of Abraham and Moses, similar to ours.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la curva decreciente de las edades es su indicio.
«We really have to overlap the lives of the patriarchs. Adam has Seth when he is 130 years old, so when Adam turns 900, Seth turns 770.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They needed to restore genetic purity.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre por qué se produce a Noé.
«There are a whole series of things that are fantastic, exciting. And they are much more so when we ‘pretend’ that the Bible is true, than when they try to transform these stories into myths and allegories, with everyone reading into them whatever they want.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The texts of the Old Testament (I am thinking above all of Genesis) present stories that have their roots in ancient Mesopotamian lore, so in the Sumerian-Akkadian stories.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«To name a few, the Atra-Hasis speaks of the “construction” of humans, Gilgamesh tells of the Flood, the Epic of Erra tells the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.» — el narrador reparte los tres relatos mesopotámicos entre los tres episodios bíblicos.
«The Anunnaki are a vast and diverse community of individuals, not just one. This, too, is (non-grammatical) proof of their plurality.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«This plurality is not doubted by scholars. It’s just classified as mythology.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el reproche es de trato desigual entre corpus.
«The Anunna, I repeat, are called by this name in Sumerian and in Eastern Semitic (Akkadian). In Western Semitic, they become El, Elohim, Eloah, an expression that immediately recalls the Arab term Allah.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«El, Elohim, Ilu or Ilanu, Anunna or Anunnaki. We’re always talking about the same figures.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Elohim are made to become ‘God’, while the others remain» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con personajes mitológicos, y llama injustificada esa discriminación.
«When Genesis, in chapter 6, speaks of the sons of the Elohim who couple with the daughters of men, it is certainly not expressed in spiritual terms: seducing girls is not exactly a theological attribute.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Genesis also says that there were giants in those times, “when the sons of God still coupled with the daughters of men, and these women bore their children. These, we read, are the heroes of old, men of renown» — el narrador con Génesis 6: la obra habla de gigantes sin usar el término nefilim.
«I take note of this. But it occurs to me to say that if I were to behave like this with my own translations, they would accuse me of changing the meaning according to what best suits my arguments. But this, in fact, is precisely what they do. The children of God are demoted to the rank of ‘angels’ if they start seducing women.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In Psalm 82, the Elohim gather in assembly. The one presiding over the assembly reprimands them severely for their wickedness and reminds them that one day they will die, ‘just like the Adam.’ And what do we find written in the footnotes? That those reproached were not Elohim, but mere judges.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«What do you think? As soon as the Elohim become embarrassing, they are no longer ‘God’ but become normal, human, judges.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la crítica es a la traducción que varía según convenga.
«Exactly. If this is the way we want to approach it, ladies and gentlemen, then we can really do whatever we want with this text.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«That was not a punishment, it was prevention. Since they have already taken from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, ‘God’ feared that they might do the same with the Tree of Life a well.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la elisión de s en a well va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«It is not God who fears men, it is the Elohim who are concerned about the unexpected initiative of the Adamites.» — el narrador.
«If I really think about, I wouldn’t say so. If Adam and Eve were not ‘made’ like ordinary mortals, because they were ‘constructed’ through genetic engineering, it is absolutely conceivable that they did not even know what death was. They are the first. They have never seen anyone around them die. They have no concept of death.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la amenaza de muerte no habría significado nada para ellos.
«Jewish exegetes do not believe the story of divine retribution (the source, for Christians, of the enormous weight of original sin» — el narrador.
«In one of the Bibles published by the Jewish publishing house Mamash, there is a note stating that the death of Adam and Eve is not a punishment,” Biglino emphasizes.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyándose en una nota editorial judía.
«It says that this was the normal condition of man. Having been born from the earth, from matter, through ageing and deterioration, he could only go back to where he came from.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«For starters, it is not true that we are the children of those two, as Adam and Eve are not the forefathers of humanity. They are the founders of one very particular line.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«But can you imagine an omnipotent and omniscient God who needs to put set a guard at the entrance, so that mere men (who were little more than little beasts) could not enter it and have access to the procedures that provided such longevity» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la duplicación put set va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«And the Mesopotamian hero knew very well that ‘long life’( and not ‘eternal life’, a concept which does not even exist in the Bible) did not require kneeling or being a good person.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Gilgamesh: la vida larga se obtiene yendo a un sitio, no por mérito.
«If we pull the blindfold form our eyes, we can see very well that Genesis clearly describes a genetic intervention of this kind.» — el narrador; la grafía form va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«They take something from the sleeping body of Adam. The term is translated as ‘rib’ but it actually means ‘side part’.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Eva is only ‘made’ after a long time, since it took ‘God’ quite a while to figure out that, for Adam, the company of animals alone was not enough to meet certain needs.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía Eva va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«They say that Adam, before having Eve, had sexual relations with all the animals that were present in the Gan Eden.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, atribuyendo la noticia a los comentaristas judíos.
«The prohibition of having sex with animals, in fact, started only after the appearance of Eve, adds Biglino.» — el narrador.
«Jewish translators who produce English-languish editions for Englishspeaking countries, even write “finally”.» — el narrador; la grafía languish y el corte de English-speaking van tal como los devuelve el índice.
«As if to say, ‘The others you gave me before weren’t good enough. This one, though, finally, is the right one, done correctly, through cloning» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«If we could forget for a moment that that sentence is written in the Bible and put it in a scientific journal, the whole world would say that what is» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente hablando de extracción de células madre de la parte lateral del cuerpo.
«Now we know that stem cells are taken principally from the iliac crest (a curved lateral part) in a minor surgery with a small suture.» — el narrador aporta el dato médico sobre el que descansa la analogía.
«If it were written in a scientific journal, no one would have any doubts. But all this is in the Bible, so it is not true» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«You know that I just ‘pretend’ that it’s true.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: cierra el capítulo devolviendo la afirmación a su condición de supuesto.
«A scientific study from 2015 suggests the possibility. Strangely enough (but perhaps not by chance), the study was conducted in the field of space travel.» — el narrador.
«The subject of this experiment was American astronaut Scott Kelly. NASA sent him to the ISS orbital station, where he stayed for 340 days.» — el narrador, sobre el experimento con gemelos de la NASA.
«They discovered that the man who had been aboard the ISS for nearly a year was rejuvenated in appearance compared to his twin. His telomeres seemed not to have shortened.» — el narrador.
«With time, through continuous cell replication, telomeres shorten. To be clear, they shorten on Earth, not in space. Scott Kelly’s had, in fact, lengthened while in orbit.» — el narrador: de ahí saca la posibilidad física de las vidas largas del texto.
«For the Apocrypha, the very name of Yared holds the memory of the great descent of the 200 so-called angels, or children of the Elohim, who took the Adamite females – “as many as they wanted” – to join with them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It was supposedly this hybridization that contributed to permanently lengthening the lives of many of the Adamites, and not just the firstborn of the founders but the other relatives as well» — el narrador, con el supuesto declarado en la frase.
«In the rabbinic text, Biglino specifies, the request is addressed to “Hashem”, which means “the Name”, a formula used by religious Jews to avoid naming the divinity they identify in the Bible, even when the Old Testament proposes the usual plural term, Elohim.» — el narrador.
«Before Avraham, they all remained young in appearance until death,” write the Jewish exegetes. Then, “Avraham asked Hashem to receive the physical signs of old age, arguing, ‘If a father and son are alike in appearance, how will one know which of the two to honor when they enter the same place together» — exégesis judía citada por el narrador: la vejez visible se pide, no se hereda.
«He did not die of old age in his bed,” Hebrew exegesis writes. “He simply disappeared prematurely, compared to the average life span of the time.» — exégesis hebrea citada por el narrador sobre Enoc.
«We know that: he left with the Elohim. Exactly like Elijah, who climbed on a Ruach of the Elohim, and just like Moses, who according to Josephus “disappeared in a cloud” in the land of Moab.» — el narrador reúne los tres casos bajo una misma lectura.
«For further details, Biglino continues, we need to open the Book of Secrets in Enoch, which the publisher Utet has included in the splendid edition of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament.» — el narrador declara la edición desde la que se cita.
«At that time,” says Enoch, “when I was 365 years old, in the first month, on the solemn day of the first month, I was alone in my house, crying and grieving with my eyes. While I was resting in my bed, sleeping, two very tall men appeared in front of me, men of such height as I had never seen on Earth.» — el Libro de los secretos de Enoc en la versión que la obra reproduce.
«Careful here, Biglino warns us. This seems to be a vision in a dream-like state. Enoch is, in fact, still sleeping.» — el narrador consigna que la escena empieza en sueños, y no lo omite.
«Their face was bright as the shining sun, their eyes like burning lamps, from their mouths came a fire, their clothes a diffusion of feathers and their» — el mismo apócrifo; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente con brazos como alas de oro.
«The scene changes now. Enoch is no longer sleeping, and he discovers that the two visitors are real. They are right in front of him, in flesh and blood.» — el narrador.
«This word, Biglino emphasizes, is so important that the Apocrypha volume’s editor dwells on it in a note. The expression “real”, only appears to be redundant, superfluous, is actually “just trying to underline the fact that what happens to Enoch on this occasion is not a vision, that it is about events that really occurred.» — el narrador: el apoyo viene de la nota del editor del apócrifo.
«If we ‘pretend’ that this story is authentic, we are faced with the possibility of coming to understand many things that, one pieced together, form a coherent picture. To be clear, we have no proof. Consistency is not in itself synonymous with authenticity. But in the meantime, it is a fact, suggesting the seriousness of a hypothesis, one that is theoretically illuminating.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: distingue coherencia de autenticidad, y es la formulación más precisa de su método en todo el libro.
«If we say that these stories are mere inventions, then we can take all these books and throw them away, because they are useless. But if we throw these away, we throw away the Bible, too. And if we throw away the Bible, you must know that we throw away everything that has been built on the Bible.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Taking those stories seriously, he reiterates, is a simply the intelligent thing to do. This is also because no one holds the evidence to support their veracity or prove their unreliability.» — el narrador; el orden de is a simply va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«The details of certain descriptions often fascinate Mauro Biglino. They seem far too accurate to be pure fantasy.» — el narrador.
«When he says that he finds himself in front of the ‘great leader’, of the Lord of the Empire, Enoch says that his face becomes hot, to the point of burning.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The intervention of a Malach is even required to cool down the man “taken away by the Elohim.” “Standing before the face of the king of kings, who can bear the infinite fear or the great burning?” we read. “The Lord called a terrifying angel from among the others and placed him beside me, and this angel cooled my face.» — el narrador con el apócrifo citado.
«These are not spiritual annotations, they are thermal ones.» — el narrador nombra en una línea el desplazamiento de lectura que la obra practica.
«Yahweh says to Moses, ‘You cannot look at it from the front, but only from behind. If you watch it as it comes towards you, the Kavod will kill you. If you don’t want to die, hide behind the rocks and be content to observe it from the back after it has passed.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Éxodo 33.
«We know from the Book of Exodus that, after that event, when Moses comes down the mountain to return to the camp, he is not in perfect physical condition. His face is burned. That means that the mere proximity to the Kavod, although protected by the shelter offered by hiding behind the rocks, has caused him burns.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el rostro quemado de Moisés es su indicio físico.
«The function of these “ascensions” is always the same. The chosen one receives strategic instructions for the destiny of humanity.» — el narrador.
«For Jewish exegesis, the covenant that God makes with Noah is true for him and for his descendants, so for all humanity. The covenant even extends to all living creatures, the “birds, beasts, and wild animals” that had been brought to safety in the ark.» — el narrador.
«The Babylonian Talmud summarizes: there are six prohibitions and only one positive recommendation, the exhortation to exercise justice by establishing courts. The others are proscriptions, prohibiting idolatry and blasphemy, illicit sexual relations, murder, theft, the consumption of the meat of a living animal.» — el narrador enumera los siete preceptos noáicos.
«Once again, according to Jewish commentators, the Seven Commandments of Noah are addressed to the whole of humanity. “The subsequent ones, dictated by Yahweh,” Biglino stresses, “are famously reserved for the people of Israel alone.» — el narrador con Biglino: la distinción entre los dos pactos sostiene todo el capítulo.
«Not with our fathers did Yahweh make this covenant,” Moses reiterates, “but with us who are all alive here today.» — Deuteronomio 5 en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«Unlike the second one, between Yahweh and the Israelites, the first covenant with Noah (made by an El, or by a group of Elohim), actually concerned all of humanity.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Maimonides, the famous Jewish scholar who lived in Spain in the 11th century, writes, “Anyone who accepts the seven commandments and observes them with care is considered a gentile devotee» — el narrador citando a Maimónides sobre la validez universal de los preceptos noáicos.
«This is perhaps logical. The Talmud itself, Biglino points out, explicitly states how Noah wasn’t Jewish either.» — el narrador.
«Not in a moral sense,” argues Biglino. “The concreteness of the Hebrew language suggests that the expression ‘righteous’ is used here to define a physical quality, I would say even physio-anatomical. And a genetic one as well, in this case, given that Noah was ‘made’, alarming his own father, Lamech.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: justo sería una cualidad física, no moral.
«Not if we translate the text verbatim. Enoch and Noah walked with the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Careful here, Biglino warns us: the article is present, in Hebrew, in the Masoretic Bible itself. It is the translation into contemporary language that “forgets” it.» — el narrador, sobre el artículo que precede a Elohim.
«In Hebrew, articles do not distinguish between singular and plural. And since in those ‘walks’ of Noah and Enoch, the expression that is used is precisely ‘Elohim’, which is plural, then the article must also be declined in the plural form.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«We seem to be returning to the time when the Elohim presented themselves to Jacob, saying, ‘You must build an altar to that Elohim who has shown himself to you.’» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el demostrativo del texto implicaría que había otros.
«The verb ‘halach’, used in the cases of both Enoch and Noah, is used in the so-called ‘hitpael’ form, which is the intensive reflexive form, meaning that it stands for something like ‘going back and forth continuously together.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el argumento es de morfología verbal.
«It confirms that in ‘hitpael’ form (or conjugation), the verb indicates taking an action in an intensive, pondering and reciprocal way.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la gramática de Menachem Artom que aduce como autoridad.
«The matter is clear. Both Enoch and Noah traveled back and forth with the Elohim.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«There are men of faith who have a much more open mind than many atheists,” Biglino assures us. “For a man of faith, the Elohim might simply be an intermediate passage between us and God. I have nothing to say about that. I stop with the Elohim, simply explaining that they are not God.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: declara dónde se detiene su lectura y qué deja fuera de ella.
«Some seem to be ‘packed’ inside their own scientism, and beware any who attempt to take certain convictions from them. Yet we are obliged to keep an open mind because we still know very little about our true history.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre los ateos.
«There are a great many traditions that basically tell us the same story. Someone is picked up and entrusted with transmitting valuable information, even “scientific” knowledge, that the progress of humanity will then depend on.» — el narrador.
«But instead of being responsible to the Elohim, he reports to the Anunnaki.» — el narrador, sobre Emmeduranki como doble mesopotámico de Enoc.
«The Latin dictionary of the Vatican, Biglino points out, contains an entry for “RIV”, an acronym for “Res Inexplicatae Volantes» — el narrador; de esa entrada sale el título del capítulo.
«The words ‘Aerius Viator’ and ‘Aeria Navis’, meaning astronaut and spaceship, are also present.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Let’s say linguistic updates, following the times. After all, one has to keep up, especially if the Pentagon itself is talking about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and Israel’s former head of aerospace security talks amiably about space bases on Mars that terrestrial astronauts share with their allies from the Galactic Federation.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si eso es ufología vaticana.
«The discovery of the Denisova, a Homo sapiens identified among some bone remains that emerged in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, dates back just to 2010.» — el narrador.
«The latest discoveries of geneticists complicate matters even further. They have verified that the Denisova mixed with other species. Still bearing human DNA, but not yet identified. We literally do not know about their existence, we have only found traces of them in DNA.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la ignorancia sobre el origen de la especie es su argumento de cautela.
«This is why I insist that we keep an open mind when reading the tales of the ancients.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«A Megillah is a cylinder, and the one sighted by Zachary flies like an airplane. He also describes its dimensions: ten meters by five meters.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el libro de Zacarías.
«Fortunately, ‘Ephah’ is one of those terms that no one has ever translated because no one knows how.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I raised my eyes again to observe and saw two women coming: the wind ruffled their wings, because they had wings like those of storks and they raised the Ephah between the earth and the sky.» — Zacarías en la versión que el libro reproduce.
«This is written in the Book of Zacharias. That the Bible speaks of things that fly is evident, beyond question.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It is obvious, Biglino reasons. Exegetes are engaged in spreading doctrine, so they must necessarily interpret the text. As long as they don’t deny the evidence.» — el narrador: la objeción no es a que se interprete sino a que se niegue lo escrito.
«Then a Ruach lifted me up, and I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake as the Kavod of Yahweh rose from that place.» — Ezequiel 3 con los términos sin traducir, tal como la obra propone leerlo.
«No. Ezekiel was ‘lifted’ by something that had wings and wheels and that, when rising from the ground, makes a great noise. This is what the Bible says.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, contra la lectura del arrebato en espíritu.
«According to some aeronautical engineers who work with NASA, the Book of Ezekiel very clearly describes what they technically define as ‘directional engines’. What more can we say» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyándose en ingenieros aeronáuticos que no nombra.
«Take Enoch,” he is ordered, “and strip him of his earthly garments, anoint him with blessed oil and clothe him with garments of glory.» — el apócrifo de Enoc en la versión que el libro reproduce; quien recibe la orden es el arcángel Miguel.
«This concept of the anointing,” Biglino observes, “is found again later in the New Testament with the term Christ, ‘Christos’, which in fact means ‘the anointed one’, indicating the Mashiach.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la unción de Enoc y el título de Cristo quedan enlazados por el mismo gesto.
«Biglino reaches for the dictionaries again. According to the Brown Driver Briggs, the verb “Meshach” means “to sprinkle” and “anoint” the body entirely and maybe even “rub” the limbs, until they are “smeared”.» — el narrador, sobre el aparato lexicográfico que Biglino invoca.
«The Lexicon Hebraicum Veteris Testamenti, from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, also agrees, comparing the Hebrew verb to the Latin “levo, oblevo» — el narrador: el cuarto diccionario aducido es del Instituto Bíblico Pontificio.
«The meaning we get from all this is that of a physical act whereby a person is taken, stripped of his clothes, rubbed, washed and finally spattered with oil in such a way as to be practically smeared with it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la unción sería un embadurnado y no dos gotas en la frente.
«It looks like some kind of procedure on the part of the Elohim to keep a certain safe distance from humans and their possible diseases, bacteria, viruses. The objective was to maintain an sterile environment once one of us was introduced into their presence. Today we would say this was some sort of hygienic-sanitary preventive measure.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el looks like que marca la conjetura.
«Take spices of the highest quality,” Yahweh says to Moses, detailing the doses as well: “500 shekels of liquid myrrh, 250 shekels of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant reed.» — Éxodo 30 en la versión que el libro reproduce, con las dosis.
«All the spices mentioned by Yahweh,” explains Biglino, “are well known for their antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiseptic properties.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In the Hebrew texts we seem to read the same tales told in the Greek myths, when they speak of the period, the famous Golden Age, when men and gods lived together.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The gods of Homer flew wearing their ‘winged shoes’. And they flew very close to the ground» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase sigue comparando ese vuelo con una tabla voladora.
«In Aethiopica, Heliodorus writes that this is the reason that the Egyptian divinities were represented with their feet together. They used flying boards.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, citando a Heliodoro.
«Men and the so-called gods traveled together. Occasionally the so-called gods came down and joined with men. Sometimes they chose certain privileged human beings and treated them in a special way, as in the case of the anointing of Enoch, when they brought them into their homes. They took them with them, and perhaps entrusted them with particular exclusive tasks.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I say let’s ‘pretend’ that what they say is true. Let’s try to trust the ancient authors, let’s ‘pretend’ that they didn’t have time to waste. Let’s pretend, then, that they recounted real events. Then we might understand that there probably was a period in the course of human history in which those things and really happened. Sometimes terrible events, but certainly very fascinating ones.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«All of Western culture is conditioned by theological thought, both directly and indirectly.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«And it is this theological thinking that always tells us how the Bible, which is only a re-worked copy of those texts, is ‘truth inspired by God» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Yes, exactly. This is something that has always perplexed me. And that also makes me smile. It takes a lot of courage to say that the originals are fairy tales, while the copy is the absolute truth inspired by God. It takes courage to be able to sustain this for millennia.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el trato desigual entre el original mesopotámico y la copia bíblica es su reproche central.
«It is the story of the relationship they had with their governor, who is known in the Bible by the name of Yahweh, and who had been assigned to them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«In telling this story, in the course of an elaboration that lasted over centuries, obviously they ended up transforming this Yahweh character: first into the most important of the Elohim (the group he belonged to), and then even into the one God.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con la secuencia en dos tiempos.
«In Christian theological evolution, this Yahweh became a Father God figure, as far as the character of Christ in the New Testament is concerned. But in reality, he was only the ruler of the family of Jacob.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Trust me, there is no trace in the Bible of the spiritual and transcendent God as we understand him. Yahweh is translated as ‘The Lord’, ‘the Eternal’, but what exactly the name Yahweh means is unknown to everyone in the world. Also because, when it was spoken, the Hebrew language did not yet exist. So we don’t even know in what language that name was originally uttered and thus written. We only know that it was put in writing several centuries later and only using consonants.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«But even the consonants are of uncertain origin, in this sense: they were uttered when Hebrew did not yet exist. So, I repeat, we do not know its meaning.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The best thing is to leave it as it is, without translating it. Why on earth should we pretend to discover or derive a meaning from it? At the moment, this task extends beyond the possibilities of any serious scientifically philological application, and this applies to this term as well as to many others.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la regla de no traducir se funda en la ignorancia declarada, no en una doctrina.
«No. If we observe him well, we discover that he is certainly neither spiritual, nor omniscient, nor omnipotent. He does not have any of the characteristics of the God elaborated by Christian theologians.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«And what about the mythical Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible? It is spoken of in Genesis, chapter 11: “The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel – because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” The theological interpretation of this event is well known.» — el narrador reproduce Génesis 11 con su plural let us go down antes de discutir la lectura recibida.
«Archaeology tends to call it Etemenanki. In a stone tablet dedicated to the great ruler Nebuchadnezzar, we read that it was a mammoth-sized Ziggurat – with workers who had come from both the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf to build it – in honor of the deity Marduk.» — el narrador identifica la torre con el zigurat de Marduk.
«The Akkadian account confirms that the people of Marduk were in fact scattered. But by whom? By Enlil, the dominant Anunna. He is the one who had forbidden “gatherings” in the area. In other words, what we seem to understand from this is that he feared alliances that were hostile to him.» — el narrador: la dispersión sería obra de un rival, no castigo de un dios único.
«It isn’t too difficult to imagine what the real reason for abandoning the tower construction project may have been: a military attack by the powerful Enlil, a sort of political act, intended to evict Marduk, who was challenging Enlil for supremacy in the region.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«According to the Sumerian texts, Mauro Biglino summarizes, territories were divided differently after the Flood. Disputes arose, resulting in open war among the Anunnaki.» — el narrador.
«But it is highly probable that the Jews used the story to take their revenge for their “Babylonian captivity”, changing the names of the actors (and thus the meaning of the story), but based on a script that they had drawn almost word-for-word from the story of those distant regional wars between the Mesopotamian Anunnaki.» — el narrador, con la probabilidad declarada en la frase.
«If it eventually turns out that ‘those people’ are still here among us, and may even still be governing us through their representatives, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el condicional dentro de la frase.
«But we are still in the realm of hypothesis, of course. Reconstructions stand only if we “pretend” that what is written in the ancient texts is true.» — el narrador vuelve a poner el techo del método sobre todo lo anterior.
«In Robert Klein’s Dictionary of Hebrew Etymology, published by the University of Haifa, the root of the term “anan” (cloud) has various original meanings, one of which is, ‘something that comes quickly to sight’ and ‘something that produces a low, continuous noise» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la nube del Éxodo.
«Let’s pretend that what the Book of Judges writes in chapter 11 is also true, when Jephthah, the leader of the Israelites, says to the leader of the Ammonites, “Will you not take what your god Elohim Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever Yaweh, our Elohim, has given us, we will possess.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Jueces 11; la grafía Yaweh va tal cual.
«Biglino smiles. “What happens to thousands of pages of theology in the face of this perfect biblical equivalence between Yahweh and Chemosh? Thousands of pages, written to invent a monotheism that does not exist in the Bible, making the Bible say what it does not say, and hiding what it explicitly says.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la simetría entre los dos Elohim del pasaje es su prueba.
«Simple: families must believe that it was God who called Abraham. But since scholars cannot be deceived, in the interlinear Bibles the verb is left in the plural.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la edición para especialistas conservaría lo que la de divulgación corrige.
«And that’s not all. In Hebrew, it is not ‘God’ who speaks to Jacob. It is always them, the Elohim. And this time there is also the article, indicating ‘that’ God, to whom Jacob must build an altar: “ha-El” – Precisely that God, and not another one. Jacob must not get confused.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«They are rulers, legislators, judges. The biblical context itself tells us, time after time, who those lords were.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre qué son los Elohim según el contexto.
«But did God truly need Abraham? Seriously. Is it conceivable that an almighty God really needed to be helped by a common mortal» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«And is it reasonable to believe that the great keys of truth can really be contained in a book? In this case, moreover, we’re talking about a collection of scrolls and papyri, the originals of which have been lost. Texts written by human hands and incessantly corrected and re-written, over centuries, until the age of Charlemagne. The authors? Unknown.» — el narrador.
«With glaring clarity, the Bible writes that Abraham followed Yahweh while his relatives followed other Elohim, whose names the Old Testament gives us.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«So I ask myself: if Abraham followed the one true God, what about his brothers, who followed the other Elohim? Were they idiots? This is what religious tradition has led us to believe, that one son was intelligent, while the others (all his brothers) were so stupid that they worshipped non-existent idols.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«It says that there was no other foreign Elohim with him. The Bible states this explicitly: there were many of them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre Deuteronomio 32.
«Translating the term Elohim with God – God meaning that entity to whom we have been accustomed and educated to attribute all those spiritual and transcendent characteristics – is simply wrong.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Since we don’t know exactly what Elohim means, and since it has a very broad semantic context, let’s not translate it. Let’s take it as it is. Since there is no philological certainty, it’s the only intellectually honest thing to do, out of respect for the Hebrew text. Let us just be mindful of what the biblical context attributes to the term Elohim each time it is mentioned. At that point, you will see that you understand everything.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la regla de no traducir se funda en la falta de certeza filológica.
«There is a God, minding his own business. Then one day he says, ‘Let the universe be made.’ He lets a few billion years go by, then at a certain point he says, ‘Now I shall create a being to worship and serve me.’ So he makes him, but he gives him rules, knowing full well in his omniscience that he will violate them. This is exactly what happens. And so he punishes him: ‘I created you immortal,’ he tells him, ‘but now you shall die.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, resumiendo la historia de la salvación en su propio registro.
«This is the story we’re supposed to believe. But if you say that there were flying machines in ancient times, they take you for a madman.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«No. The verb ‘karitoo’ indicates physical beauty. So the correct translation is, ‘Hello, you who have made yourself beautiful» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el saludo del ángel a María.
«Cardinal Daniélou dedicated a very in-depth study to the figure of Gabriel. For him, the Holy Spirit is the Christian transposition of the Old Testament figure of Gavri-El. So the holy spirit is Gabriel, and Gabriel is an ‘ish’, a male. The Gospel tells us that the spirit ‘covered’ Mary. Ergo, by the transitive property, it is Gabriel who ‘covered’ Mary.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, apoyándose en un estudio del cardenal Jean Daniélou.
«Of course, he’s supposed to be. But in the Bible, when Daniel sees Gabriel coming, he says, ‘I saw an ish coming’, a male individual. The reasoning is flawless. The so-called biblical ‘angels’ were figures in flesh and blood.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Biglino avoids subscribing to the “gossip” of the alleged love story between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, which Dan Brown drew from to trace the legendary lineage of the “Sang Real” imagined in his novel The Da Vinci Code.» — el narrador consigna que Biglino se desmarca de esa hipótesis novelesca.
«But,” he warns, “let’s remember that when Mary Magdalene washes Jesus’ the feet and anoints them with oil, she actually seems to be performing a ritual, the so-called ‘royal anointing’ reserved for husbands. To clarify, this ritual extended to the whole body, including the genitals, and was done to facilitate sexual penetration.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el artículo sobrante en Jesus’ the feet va tal cual.
«These were wealthy women. Luke himself says that ‘they provided for them’, Jesus and the apostles, ‘with their goods» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre las mujeres que financiaban al grupo.
«According to certain sources, it seems that the Romans favored the second hypothesis. We read that they sent a ‘speiran’ to arrest him, a cohort of 600 armed men. Isn’t that a bit more than necessary for the arrest of a harmless pacifist prophet» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el tamaño del destacamento es su indicio.
«And this leader was surrounded by women, a fact that religious tradition later pretended to ignore, as though the presence of women might reveal a more earthly image of the male protagonists, struggling with ordinary married life.» — el narrador.
«Yet even Yahweh – according to some accounts – seems to have had his better half: Anat-Yahweh, or Anat-Yahù.» — el narrador.
«This is never mentioned, but Yahweh’s companion was well known. She is mentioned by the Jews of Elephantine and also by those who, in the Negev, engaged in prophetic activity. Not to mention that she was well known in Lebanese Ugaritic culture.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el apoyo son los papiros de Elefantina y los textos ugaríticos.
«In the Old Testament, though, there is no trace of this hypothetical “wife” of Yahweh. “That’s how it is. The Bible has eliminated any female presence.» — el narrador con Biglino: la ausencia se lee como supresión.
«First, forget, for a moment, about all traditional interpretations. Second, focus on a literal reading, pure and simple, of those verses.» — el narrador enuncia el método en dos pasos.
«Stories containing echoes of other stories. They are all similar, with traces of some beings who, at some point, appear to have descended to Earth.» — el narrador.
«Once naked, the Bible is very different from how it has always been presented to us.» — el narrador; de aquí sale el título del libro.
«Its sincerity may seem scandalous when we ensure that even the rougher details are included, aspects that are completely off topic if discussing religion.» — el narrador: la sinceridad que el capítulo reclama es la de un texto que no oculta lo que le conviene.
«Land, religion and war: this is Saba Sardi’s hypothesis of the origin of the system of domination.» — el narrador.
«This symbolic reading of the matter seems to contrast with the historical reality of the events,” says the translator.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre la lectura de Caín y Abel como agricultura contra pastoreo.
«Agriculture and pastoralism, while appearing to be conflicting, in fact both actively practiced, especially in those territories where the so-called sacred texts were born. It is well known that, while they couldn’t do without cultivation, from a certain point on, animal husbandry was equally indispensable. The success of farmers did not at all cause the disappearance of animal breeders and herders.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Symbols have the power to transmit the same message over time, They are often of ancestral, archetypal origin. They allude to very remote events, which in turn illuminate aspects of life, timeless trends and events destined to be repeated.» — el narrador reconoce la fuerza del símbolo antes de acotarla.
«If the Book’s protagonist is not God, what happens to all the coded handles – articulated over time – that we use to grasp all the possible symbolic meanings of the Old Testament, interpreted as a “secret map” of the divine» — el narrador plantea la consecuencia de la tesis para la lectura simbólica.
«We are talking about men who were originally concerned with the passing on of memory, and then with gradually building a possible idea of God, manipulating the original texts, lost along with 11 whole books of the Old Testament, including the one on the Wars of Yahweh.» — el narrador nombra uno de los once libros perdidos.
«Having established that we have no firm truths,” Mauro Biglino prefaces, “sometimes I have the impression that symbolic readings (esoteric, allegorical, metaphorical) are similar to theological ones.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: pone del mismo lado a la exégesis simbólica y a la teológica.
«In short, in all these situations there is a tendency to cover the literal meaning of what is actually written.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«What’s more, those who engage in this kind of interpretation claim to be able to enter the minds of the ancient authors, and there are hundreds of them. They claim that they can affirm with certainty that when they said one thing, they actually meant to say, or hide, another.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«If we also consider that there were very few people who knew how to read and write – so these authors in fact wrote for themselves (and they could» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente y repite el argumento de alfabetización del comienzo del libro.
«One of the milestones for the symbolic-esoteric reinterpretation of the Bible is the “Zohar” (“Sefer ha-Zohar”, the Book of Splendor), a kabbalistic work of Sephardic rabbis, written in Spain at the end of the 12th century.» — el narrador.
«Mauro Biglino is perfectly aware of the literary beauty of that text, as well as its infinite charms. But he fears that it represents a false trail, if it is held to contain, safely under lock and key, who knows what truths of biblical origin, perhaps accessible only to initiates.» — el narrador: el reparo al Zohar no es de valor literario sino de función.
«I have the impression,” he says, “that the readings even of medieval Jewish scholars tended to hide the concreteness of the facts.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Because that would have been even more threatening to their very existence.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la ocultación se explicaría por la persecución de los judíos en la Europa cristiana.
«Hiding the extreme concreteness of the Bible may have been one of the reasons for covering concrete facts and real objectives with mystical, spiritual and transcendental elements. That concreteness would never have been accepted, in particular by Christianity but neither by Islam. These are religions that had imposed themselves in the Mediterranean world with violence and with the firm intention of destroying everything that could be a danger to them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, con el may have been que marca la conjetura.
«My ideas remain hypotheses,” says Biglino. “Obviously, no possibility can be ruled out a priori. Also because, as I said, no one possesses the truth.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The only certainty is that the words that were written in the Bible are the words that were written. The rest belongs to imagination, or to the capacity for elaboration, of the reader or of whoever intends to disseminate their own idea, thus choosing to attribute it to the biblical authors in order to lend it an unquestionable authority.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la única certeza que reclama es la de la letra.
«You end up having everyone against you. Everyone feels like you’re taking something away from them. The religious and the faithful, the symbolist and the esoterist.» — el narrador enumera a quiénes incomoda la lectura literal.
«This type of project, which I worked on for a few years, brought me into direct contact, let’s say, with the very origins, with the etymology of each individual word. Terms that, time after time, are put back into the context of the stories. Words that gave birth to a mosaic that is totally different from what is traditionally told to us.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el trabajo interlineal del que sale todo.
«And so I poured out my doubts, my perplexities, my questions on paper. I expressed my feelings, in describing what was coming out of it. And always with a precise method: ‘let’s pretend that it’s true» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«To be clear, it is not a playful method. In my opinion, though, it is the only proper one, precisely because we cannot be sure that what is written in the Bible is true. We do not possess the original codices. We only have copies of copies of copies, continually re-worked over time.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el fingimiento se justifica por la falta de originales, no por juego.
«If there is one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the texts we have today are not the ones that were originally compiled, because every time they re-wrote them, they changed them.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Naturally, this applies to all ancient texts, not just the Bible. So where’s» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente diciendo que la anomalía es que solo sobre la Biblia se levantó un sistema de verdades incuestionables.
«If we accept the Bible for what it is and treat it accordingly, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, there’s no problem. If, however, we want to mine out absolute truths, then I say that we should at least go and see what the text says. ‘Let’s pretend’ that what is written is true. And let’s see what comes of that.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: su reclamo se activa solo cuando del texto se extraen verdades absolutas.
«It arises when we want to consider the text as unique in the history of humanity because it was ‘inspired by God.’ And unfortunately (I say ‘unfortunately’ for those who believe) the Bible simply isn’t.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«The Bible does tell us some things, but to have it talk about God, we need to make it say completely different things.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or who possesses a will of the kind that we recognize in ourselves.» — palabras de Albert Einstein reproducidas por el narrador, que enseguida las hace suyas para Biglino.
«In any case, there’s nothing to fear. If you read the Bible, there is no chance of mistaking it. That, in fact, is not God.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Reading the Bible, Biglino says, is enough to understand that the Bible never talks about God.» — el narrador.
«when you make it speak of God that you have to start fabricating things. You’ve got to develop allegories, symbolisms and anthropomorphisms, come up with a whole series of cultural and interpretative categories, ones that do not exist in the Bible. They came from the outside, over centuries.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la frase arranca en la plana anterior con There is no need to invent anything.
«Yes. Scrape off all the incrustation that has formed over the millennia, superimposing an idea of Greek-Hellenistic thought that had nothing to do with the culture of the ancient Jews, with ancient Semitic culture.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre en qué consiste desnudar el texto.
«If we want to point fingers, one great fault was taking Hellenistic Greek thought, particularly Platonism and Neoplatonism, and forcing it into that text, whose culture of origin is completely different. This is not Platonic idealism, but the concreteness of Semitic thought and culture, which has nothing to do with the foundations of the Greco-Hellenistic culture.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: nombra al platonismo y al neoplatonismo como los injertos que rechaza.
«This is a culture expressed in a language that does not even contemplate the word God, just as it does not know the words soul, spirit and eternity.» — el narrador.
«This really was a great crime. But I also realize that, had they not done this, it would’t have been able to proceed with the construction of the theological system that was later presented to us.» — Biglino, entrecomillado; la grafía would’t va tal cual.
«Et solum superest sepulchrum.” This is what is written on a headstone in a funerary chapel, a family tomb.» — el narrador, sobre la inscripción con que se cierra el capítulo.
«Not at all. Those words were sculpted in 1870 by an ancestor of mine. He signed his name ‘Biglino Blasius’. He also wrote ‘cogitanti vilescunt omnia,’ meaning, for the ones who think, all things lose their value. Or rather, they regain their real value once they are liberated from the superfluity that we are so accustomed to attributing to the reality that surrounds us. A profound thought: remember the biblical ‘vanitas vanitatum’ of Ecclesiastes.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, ante la pregunta de si esa inscripción es el testamento de un ateo.
«Oh, I forgot: my ancestor Blasius Biglino was a priest, as well as a canon and theologian.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: quien firmó esa lápida era sacerdote y teólogo.
«More than a supernatural event, was it perhaps an extraterrestrial manifestation? In a certain sense, it’s only logical. The cross in the sky magically appeared on the top of the Musinè, a natural pyramid at the bottom of the valley, which has always sparked the imagination of ufologists.» — el narrador, sobre la cruz que la leyenda pone en el cielo de Constantino; lo plantea en interrogativo.
«I practically live across the street from it,” Biglino smiles. “And believe me, in all these years I have never seen anything strange. No lights, no flashes, no ‘flying chariots’. Absolutely nothing, ever, not even by accident.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: declara no haber visto nunca nada en el monte que los ufólogos frecuentan.
«In practice, this is the natural resonance of the Earth, discovered by the German physicist Winfried Otto Schumann half a century ago, translating the constant electromagnetic emission coming from our planet into a mathematical formula.» — el narrador, sobre las resonancias Schumann.
«It is said that the first to identify that frequency (7.83 Hertz) were the Rishis, ancient Indian seers, recognized for having codified “Om”, the so-called primordial vibration.» — el narrador, con el it is said que marca la atribución ajena.
«Giordano Bruno comes to mind, when he called the planets “animals”, considering them to be living beings, endowed with a soul.» — el narrador; es la única vez que la obra trae a Bruno.
«Can we imagine the universe as a single, gigantic living being, made up of innumerable energies, capable of aggregating to create an infinite range of interconnecting frequencies and shapes» — el narrador plantea la hipótesis de un universo vivo como pregunta, no como tesis del libro.
«For Max Plank, the father of quantum mechanics, matter is only condensed energy and interconnected vibration.» — el narrador; la grafía Plank va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«According to biologist Rupert Sheldrake, we are living systems inserted into even more complex systems, in a universe made up of vibratory structures.» — el narrador, encadenando a Sheldrake, Kaku, Tesla, Majorana y Emoto en un mismo párrafo.
«What relationship is there between the prospective God of the Universe and the Lord of the Kavod, the one who fought over pastures with his “colleagues” Milkom and Kamosh, to then share sheep and girls with them» — el narrador enfrenta el Dios cósmico del párrafo anterior con el personaje del Antiguo Testamento.
«Drop it,” Mauro Biglino quips. “It’s better that way.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: se niega a enlazar su lectura con la especulación cosmológica que el narrador acaba de desplegar.
«Well, they recently discovered something else as well. Resveratrol seems to prevent the bone pathologies caused by extended stays in space.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, sobre el resveratrol del vino tinto.
«Someone still has to explain to me how the usefulness of gold ever occurred to Paleolithic man, and how they managed to figure out how to extract it. With what technologies? You certainly can’t hope to melt rocks by burning wood to mine the gold.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: la minería antigua del oro es su última pregunta abierta.
«All the ancient texts tell us that it was specifically ‘those others’ who needed the gold.» — Biglino, entrecomillado.
«Gold hinders bacterial proliferation. Even Yahweh knew something about that. He in fact had everything overlaid with gold. And he made sure that the Jews took quite a lot with them when they left Egypt. Once they reached their destination, he had it delivered to him at the Temple – in his house, that is – to keep a close eye on it.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el oro se lee por su propiedad física y por su custodia.
«This news just came out. They have discovered mines in Namibia that date back 150,000 years. I wonder which hominid could dig into those rocks to extract gold» — Biglino, entrecomillado; el dato queda pendiente de cotejo.
«Flying as well are the final words of Mauro Biglino, the man who, without intending to, revealed the naked Bible.» — el narrador cierra el capítulo con la fórmula que da nombre al libro.
«Basically, it is useful to make these substitutions when reading the Bible in common translations,” explains Mauro Biglino.» — Biglino, entrecomillado, presentando el glosario que cierra el libro.
«It is enough to carefully read the context of the inserted words.” At that point, “everyone will have the surprising personal sensation of understanding who or what they are talking about.» — Biglino, entrecomillado: el contexto, no la etimología, es lo que se le pide al lector.
«In any case, the meaning of these terms is accurately reported and philologically explained in Biglino’s books. The author, however, does not want to condition the reader.» — el narrador: el glosario se ofrece deliberadamente sin definiciones.
«When you find the word “God”, replace it with “Elohim”. Although the word “Eloah” (or “El”) is sometimes found in Hebrew, this substitution helps to understand who it is we are really talking about.» — primera entrada del glosario.
«When you find the term “Angel” (or “Angels”) replace it with “Malach” (or, in the plural, “Malachim”» — entrada del glosario que el resumen de la ficha no recogía.
«When you find the term “Glory of God” (or “of the Lord”, “of the Eternal”), replace it with “Kavod of the Elohim” or “Kavod of Yahweh» — entrada del glosario.
«When you find “Omnipotent” or “Almighty”, replace it with “El-Shadday» — última entrada del glosario.
Sobre la obra
91 entradas — lo que el aparato y la investigación dicen de ella«The Naked Bible The Truth about the most famous book in history by Mauro Biglino and Giorgio Cattaneo» — portadilla: la obra es de dos, y la ficha lo consigna antes que nada.
«Copyright © 2021 Tuthi Srl, Torino Viale XXV aprile, 62 – 10133 Torino customerservice@tuthi.eu Translation: Nathaniel De Saint - Clair Layout: Graffio (Borgone Susa, TO) Cover: Stefano Fusaro» — página legal. El nombre del traductor va con espacios alrededor del guion, tal cual.
«Giorgio Cattaneo has worked as a journalist, screenwriter, playwright and author of documentaries.» — nota biográfica final; añade su colaboración con Giulietto Chiesa. Cattaneo se nombra en dos páginas de todo el libro, la portadilla y esta.
«Incidentally, Mauro Biglino has an excellent relationship with the Jewish community» — voz del narrador sobre su entrevistado; muestra de la prosa en tercera persona que compone el cuerpo.
«According to scholar Zecharia Sitchin, the so-called Sumerian gods – the Anunna, or Anunnaki – made Homo sapiens through the use of genetic engineering. For Sitchin, the Anunna were not divine beings, but ‘ancient astronauts'.» — tesis de Sitchin expuesta por el narrador en tercera persona, no tesis de Biglino: la base que él reclama es el hebreo, no la sumerología.
«He was called Touth by the Egyptians, Toth by the inhabitants of Alexandria, Hermes by the Greeks.» — cadena Taaut–Thoth–Hermes citada a través de Eusebio, *Praeparatio evangelica*, que a su vez cita a Filón de Biblos sobre Sanjuniatón de Berito. La obra la usa para denunciar la alegorización, no para leer la Biblia en clave hermética.
«We are in times when the fate of the whole world is threatened by a global conspiracy: a global plan called the Great Reset is underway.» — voz de mons. Carlo Maria Viganò, citado en su carta; el narrador la reproduce.
«The book mentions a very peculiar ‘esoteric tradition,' one that ‘is tied to the belief that the history of the human species on Earth is much older, and arouses far more controversy, than what is held by official science.'» — el narrador presenta así *The Other Europe* (2010), de Paolo Rumor, abogado de Vicenza.
«from what in jargon is called ‘the Great Work', a term borrowed from the hermetic lexicon of alchemical tradition, familiar to initiatory circuits.» — el narrador, glosando el material de Rumor: es el único punto de contacto de la obra con el léxico alquímico.
«The project envisages that Europe be governed by a moral leadership, personified by some individuals belonging to branches of ancient nobility that have their roots in the distant past, partly of Jewish extraction.» — cadena de atribución completa: es material del libro de Paolo Rumor, reproducido por el narrador dentro de esta obra, y Biglino se abstiene expresamente de juzgarlo en la p. 44. No es tesis de Biglino ni de la obra.
«I can only express my amazement,» — Rumor confesses, «at the assertion that a more or less significant part of Western history has been and still is skillfully and profoundly influenced by a few ruling minds.» — Rumor sobre su propio material, citado por el narrador.
«If there were any certainty of God, God would not be,» — philosophizes the Catholic theologian Ermis Segatti. — voz de Ermis Segatti, teólogo católico, citada por el narrador.
«we can think that the word of God does resound in those pages after all» — objeción interna en boca del biblista valdense Daniele Garrone, que la obra consigna sin rebatirla.
«Many authoritative Jewish exegetes do not think so» — voz del narrador, sobre el encuentro de 2016 con teólogos cristianos y judíos; en la misma página, «Nothing that could undermine his deductive system based on a literal reading of the Old Testament».
«Reckless? Demented? Out of his mind?» — retórica del narrador, no juicio sobre Biglino ni de Biglino; abre el capítulo con la metáfora de la «magic carpet», también suya.
«My acknowledgment and thanks go to Elisabetta, for the precious collaboration provided during the entire drafting of the text» — dedicatoria de los preliminares; es el único crédito de redacción que la obra da fuera de sus dos firmantes.
«Life was packaged like a preserve and brought to Earth.» — voz del rabino cabalista Arie Ben Nun, citada por el narrador.
«From another galaxy, from a planet illuminated by a bright, cold star» — la respuesta de Arie Ben Nun a la pregunta de de dónde vino esa vida, en la misma cita del narrador.
«Mauro Biglino addressed the issue extensively and directly in his video “Le radici del proggetto” (The Roots of the Project), published on November 20th, 2020 on his YouTube channel ilveromaurobiglino» — el narrador sitúa en un video de YouTube el origen de este tramo del libro; la grafía proggetto va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Echoing Monsignor Viganò, Biglino recalls, Livio Fanzaga has spoken of a “health coup d’état” and a “mass-media coup d’état.”» — voz de Livio Fanzaga, director de Radio Maria, citada por el narrador a través de Biglino.
«As far as the Jews are concerned, the most reliable facts are narrated by Sanchuniaton of Beritus» — Eusebio de Cesarea en la *Praeparatio evangelica*, citado por el narrador; la cadena completa es Eusebio citando a Filón de Biblos que cita a Sanjuniatón.
«had in his hands the memoirs written by Jeròmbalus, priest of the god Yehwò» — la misma cadena; el narrador añade que ese Yehwò es para Biglino el Yahweh bíblico, adjudicación que el libro atribuye a Biglino y no a Eusebio.
«The Greeks, he writes, first appropriated most of the myths created by the ancient priestly caste, then, “after having adorned them in various ways, they transformed them into tragedies and, thinking of seducing men through the charm of fables, they embellished them in every possible way» — Filón de Biblos citado por Eusebio y reproducido por el narrador; la denuncia de la fabulación griega no es de Biglino.
«Our ears, accustomed to these stories since childhood and pummeled by these fantasies for so many centuries, guard the fabulous material transmitted to us by these fables as though it were an archive.» — misma cadena Eusebio–Filón, reproducida por el narrador.
«This model would then be ruled by the giants of what Shoshana Zuboff, a Harvard Business School professor, has called “Surveillance Capitalism.”» — el narrador toma el término de Shoshana Zuboff; no es vocabulario de Biglino.
«Joining the German economist Klaus Schwab, president of the Davos Forum (and the author of the neologism “Great Reset”), are members of the World Bank, influential politicians from the UK and the US and great minds of industry and finance. Their possible goal? To exploit this pandemic crisis, “reset” the economic model and replace it with the so-called “Green New Deal”» — el narrador atribuye a Klaus Schwab la acuñación del término que da nombre al capítulo.
«The man to reveal to him the existence of this phantom “structure” made of unseen powers was Maurice Schumann, an esoterist and well-known French politician and one of the founders of Gaullism» — cadena de atribución del material de Rumor: la fuente última que el libro nombra. El nombre queda pendiente de cotejo, por su cercanía con el de Robert Schuman.
«Global oversight: wars, empires and revolutions, technological advances. And control of knowledge: the gradual diffusion of ideologies, beliefs and information.» — el narrador resume lo que atribuye a esa estructura según Rumor; no es tesis de Biglino, que se abstiene en la p. 44.
«There was, and perhaps still is, at a very high level and unknown to us, a group of people (or an entity) that worked and is still working on an important project» — Paolo Rumor en *The Other Europe*, citado por el narrador.
«Genetic cloning? It is already present in the Bible, according to Egael Safran, professor of medical ethics at the University of Jerusalem.» — voz de Egael Safran, citada por el narrador; el respaldo a la lectura de Adán y Eva como clonación viene de un tercero, no de Biglino.
«His were eloquent titles: The Bible Does Not Talk about God, The Alien God of the Bible, There Is No Creation in the Bible, The Bible Is Not a Sacred text» — el narrador enumera los primeros libros propios de Biglino, de 2010 en adelante.
«there are over 300,000 mentions of him on the web» — el narrador mide así la difusión de su entrevistado.
«A particularly interesting suggestion is offered by the book The Bible Never Said That, which Mauro Biglino wrote in 2017 with Lorena Forni, a philosopher of law and university professor in Milan» — el narrador; coautoría declarada de una obra distinta de esta.
«I have taken note of your precious error report, thank you very much. I cannot imagine how such a mistake could have been made.» — voz de Piergiorgio Ambrogio Beretta, director de la colección en Edizioni San Paolo, en carta que el libro reproduce.
«Do not hesitate to write to me directly to report any other errors.» — misma carta de Don Beretta, reproducida por el narrador.
«I checked your reports carefully right away, and I readily admit that you are correct across the board,» — respuesta de Don Beretta a un segundo informe de erratas, reproducida por el narrador.
«The literal translation you executed corresponds almost exactly to ours.» — Don Beretta sobre las páginas manuscritas del Génesis que Biglino le envió.
«Special thanks to the solidarity of my friend from Turin, Mauro Biglino, who verified the Hebrew text, the Greek version and all editorial work of the final drafts» — crédito impreso en el Éxodo de Edizioni San Paolo, reproducido por el narrador.
«If you agree,” wrote Don Beretta, “I would like to ask you to begin the translation of Joshua and Judges.» — Don Beretta, en el encargo que la editorial acabaría no publicando.
«The title: The Book that Will Forever Change Our Ideas about the Bible. It would be released in that fateful year – 2010.» — el narrador fecha el primer libro propio de Biglino, cuya publicación coincide con el fin de los encargos.
«There is no creation in the Bible he explicitly titled one of his first and disruptive “heretical” books, published in 2012.» — el narrador; el subtítulo que consigna es Genesis tells us another story.
«In the essay “Dominio”, the great intellectual Francesco Saba Sardi, a highly learned polyglot translator of some of the most important writers in the world, traces the current system of power back to the “discovery” of agriculture, which rendered land ownership of great importance for the first time» — tesis de Francesco Saba Sardi expuesta por el narrador.
«Speaking of which, the fact that Homeric and biblical literature perfectly mirror each other is compellingly explained at length in his book The False Testament, published in 2016» — el narrador remite a otra obra de Biglino para el paralelo homérico-bíblico.
«Segatti says that the ‘clan’ aspect of the concept of original sin – that is to say, this sin being passed on from father to son – is utterly refuted in the New Testament,” even if, unfortunately, Segatti adds, “Theology has made extensive use of it» — voz del teólogo católico Ermis Segatti, citada por Biglino dentro del libro.
«He confirmed that in Judaism, the concept of original sin does not even exist.» — voz de Ariel Di Porto, rabino jefe de la Comunidad Judía de Turín, citada por Biglino.
«For Garrone, it is not even clear where St. Paul got this concept of sin to begin with.» — el narrador atribuye la reserva a Daniele Garrone, biblista valdense; en la p. 99 el mismo Garrone objeta a Biglino.
«According to Rashi, Adam had had intercourse with all the animals, but he was not satisfied until he joined with Eve.» — el narrador atribuye la noticia a Rashi; el respaldo rabínico se cita, no se demuestra.
«In his essay “Fear and Tremor”, published in 1843, the great Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard defines Abraham as a “hero of faith and a model of extraordinary Christianity» — voz de Kierkegaard citada por el narrador, que la contrapone enseguida a la lectura de Dylan; el título va como Fear and Tremor en la fuente.
«According to scholar Professor Luigi Moraldi, the apocryphal texts of the Old Testament speak of “at least 23 different types of celestial chariots.”» — voz del profesor Luigi Moraldi, citada por el narrador; la cifra de veintitrés carros llega a la obra por él.
«The Alien God of the Bible is in fact one of the most striking texts that Biglino has had published.» — el narrador, sobre otra obra de Biglino; el título usa alien en el sentido que él acota en la misma plana.
«Biglino carefully examines the case in his essay entitled “Gods and demigods» — el narrador remite a otra obra de Biglino para el paralelo entre Jesús y los héroes homéricos.
«Mauro Biglino spoke of this in detail in his essay, “Made Human» — el narrador, sobre el libro donde Biglino desarrolla el argumento de los telómeros.
«Yuval Noah Harari also states this fact in “Homo Deus”. Historian and essayist, Harari is a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a member of the prestigious Israeli Academy of Sciences and Letters.» — el narrador apoya en Harari la expectativa de prolongar la vida por manipulación genética.
«A few years ago, the eminent British astrophysicist Steven Hawking reiterated this concept himself. The idea that man is the only inhabitant of the universe is, to his mind, simply ridiculous.» — voz de Stephen Hawking, citada por el narrador; la grafía Steven va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«Rather than making surprising discoveries in the space around us,” said Dr. Negr, “we may one day simply realize that we Homo sapiens were ‘originated’ by non-terrestrial beings» — voz de la astrofísica Barbara Negri en una entrevista de 2017 en TV 2000, citada por el narrador; la grafía Negr va tal cual.
«According to French philosopher Michel Onfray, the most appropriate way to look at our condition is to consider it a kind of intense form of breeding and raising livestock.» — tesis de Michel Onfray expuesta por el narrador.
«In his essay “Theory of Dictatorship”, Onfray pays homage to Orwell’s prophetic Animal Farm. Any revolution, in the end, always leads to a new authoritarian system, in which the new rulers turn out to be just as wicked as those overthrown by the rebels, if not even worse.» — el narrador resume el ensayo de Onfray.
«The most aggressive rams, displaying greater resistance to human control, were slaughtered first,” observes Yuval Noah Harari in his best-selling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, denouncing a ruthless trend: punish rebels, even with death» — voz de Harari citada por el narrador; la analogía del rebaño con que el libro trabaja llega por él.
«And so, generation after generation, “the sheep became fatter, more submissive and less enterprising» — Harari, citado por el narrador.
«Myths and stories accustomed people, almost from birth, to thinking in a certain way, to behaving within certain parameters, to wanting certain things and observing certain rules» — Harari, citado por el narrador.
«Of the many prejudices forever haunting us Jews, perhaps the worst one is the notion that we are all exceptionally intelligent, as though we were all Einstein.» — voz de Moni Ovadia, citada por el narrador para abrir el capítulo.
«Do you recognize us? We are the sheep of the ghetto: shorn for a thousand years, resigned to injury and offence.» — versos de The Song of Martin Fontasch, que Primo Levi publica en su novela, citados por el narrador.
«When asked recently about Biglino’s translations, Riccardo Di Segni, Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Rome, reaffirmed that, “Nowhere is it written that the word ‘olam’ means ‘eternity’» — voz del rabino Riccardo Di Segni, citada por el narrador como aval de una de las tesis léxicas de Biglino.
«According to Sand, the real Jews descended from those who lived in Palestine at the time of the Roman conquest, the current Palestinians, and in his books he speaks of a real ‘invention’ of the Jewish people.» — tesis del profesor Shlomo Sand, expuesta por Biglino dentro del libro y calificada por el narrador de tesis extrema.
«Professor Michael Satlow points this out, for example, in his book How the Bible Became Holy» — el narrador con Biglino entrecomillado: la tesis sobre el complejo cultural de los judíos de Alejandría se apoya en Michael Satlow.
«This can also be seen with the latest edition of the Catholic Catechism, The scholar offers a detailed counterpoint to it on his YouTube channel “Mauro Biglino Official Channel” again based on the examination of texts cited.» — el narrador nombra el canal donde Biglino desarrolla el material de este capítulo; la coma por punto va tal como la imprime la fuente.
«A single power structure has ruled humanity uninterruptedly for some 12,000 years» — material de Paolo Rumor, expuesto por el narrador; Biglino se abstiene de juzgarlo en la p. 44.
«For former Canadian minister Paul Hellyer, “aliens” physically indistinguishable from humans are even sitting in the benches of the United States Congress.» — voz de Paul Hellyer, citada por el narrador.
«The most recent statement on this topic was made by General Haim Eshed, a university lecturer who for thirty years was at the head of the Israeli space program.» — el narrador presenta al general Haim Eshed, cuya entrevista de diciembre de 2020 cita a continuación.
«Downing has no doubt,” Biglino says. “He writes that the Mosaic religion was founded by the Elohim, who are not ‘God’. They are individuals in flesh and blood, says Downing, and the Bible tells us that they traveled in flying machines» — tesis del pastor presbiteriano Barry Downing, expuesta por Biglino dentro del libro.
«Those who are convinced that a crucified man came back to life after three days,” writes Kreiner, “should not turn their nose up too quickly at people who believe in UFOs and extraterrestrials, or who are convinced that they have met them» — voz de Armin Kreiner, teólogo de la Universidad de Múnich, citada por el narrador.
«For the German theologian, “there is an absolutely decisive point on which the Christian faith and the faith in UFOs are in the same boat. Both depend on the reliability of eyewitnesses» — Kreiner, citado por el narrador: el argumento es de paridad de criterio testimonial.
«Justin maintains that Jesus, “even if he were only an ordinary man, for his wisdom alone he would be worthy to be called the son of God.”» — voz de Justino Mártir en sus Apologías, citada por el narrador a instancias de Biglino.
«We Christians, adds Justin in his message to the Roman emperor, “say nothing new, nothing that is not said about those among you who are called sons of Zeus.”» — Justino Mártir, citado por el narrador.
«A well-known figure in contemporary inter-religious thought, the Afghan-Italian Gabriele Mandel Khan (a distinguished scholar with more than two hundred essays to his credit), shines light on the long journey of certain ideas, which from the Asian steppes of Amu Darya may have traveled thousands of» — el narrador se apoya en Gabriele Mandel Khan para el viaje de las ideas dualistas; la frase se cierra en la plana siguiente.
«Assuming the validity of these references,” we read, “most biblical scholars place his birth after the census of 8 BCE and before the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, with a greater preference for 7-6 BCE» — Cathopedia, la enciclopedia católica en línea, citada por el narrador como confirmación de la cronología que da Biglino.
«In practice, it is as if we were restoring the ‘childhood photos of the universe’ to their original condition, eliminating the wear and tear of the time and space that have distorted these images,” explains astrophysicist Neelima Sehgal of New York’s Stony Brook University.» — voz de la astrofísica Neelima Sehgal, citada por el narrador sobre las mediciones del telescopio de Atacama.
«When the daughters of the Adamites made a woman beautiful in preparation for the wedding canopy,” Rashi writes, “one of the powerful entered and possessed her first.» — voz de Rashi, citada por Biglino dentro del libro.
«According to Rashi, the sons of the Elohim even took “married women, men and animals.”» — Rashi, citado por el narrador; la adjudicación es del comentarista, no del texto bíblico.
«Mauro Biglino spoke about some of these issues once again at the end of 2020, with Davide Bolognesi, PhD of Columbia University. The video ended up on the prestigious New York university platform.» — el narrador sitúa parte del material de este capítulo en una conversación grabada.
«Like all the great cities of the Near East, it was inhabited by people of different nationalities, so it truly was a city of a hundred languages and a confusion of tongues.» — la Enciclopedia Treccani citada por el narrador: la confusión de lenguas sería un rasgo de la ciudad, anterior al episodio bíblico.
«Zecharia Sitchin places the episode of the destruction of the tower “in a moment shortly before the return of Marduk to Egypt, where he was known by the name of Ra.”» — tesis de Sitchin expuesta por el narrador en tercera persona, no tesis de Biglino.
«In 2016, the Iraqi transport minister Kazem Finjan al Hammami spoke at the inauguration of an airport, embarrassing those present by stating rather matter-of-factly that, “In Iraq we were already flying 7,000 years ago. Our ancestors, the ancient Sumerians, built launching pads that sent them up for space travel.”» — declaración del ministro iraquí de transportes, citada por el narrador.
«Jewish Albert Einstein identified himself as a “non-believer”, yet “deeply religious”. He explained that, “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.”» — voz de Einstein, citada por el narrador.
«Nothing but “a collection of legends,” though “honorable” ones. “Primitive and rather infantile” legends, if interpreted to “invent” a character –the God persona – who in fact is only “an expression of human weakness,” with no relation to the origin of the universe.» — Einstein sobre la Biblia, citado por el narrador.
«Translator of 19 books of the Old Testament for the prestigious Edizioni San Paolo, Mauro Biglino is an author, essayist and scholar of the history of religions who has been well known to the general public since 2010 with the publication of his first astonishing textual re-reading of the Bible, through 14 highly successful essays.» — nota biográfica final: la cifra de diecinueve libros traducidos y catorce ensayos propios queda declarada por la propia obra.
«Biglino has worked with countless experts (biologists, archaeologists, engineers and doctors) who have supported his hypotheses regarding the possibility that the Bible contains evidence of the true origin of humanity, literally “manufactured” by a group of non-terrestrial individuals, the Elohim, subsequently transformed into divinities, starting with the first of them, Yahweh, who in the Old Testament is merely the “governor” of the Israelites, one of the many Jewish families.» — nota biográfica final; los expertos que la respaldan van sin nombre.
«A scholar of various ancient languages, Biglino has drawn suggestive parallels between the biblical narrative and contemporary traditions, from Egyptian to Vedic-Indian, passing through Greco-Roman culture, Homeric literature and the mysterious “biblical” traces that are so plentiful in the toponymy of the Baltic Sea.» — nota biográfica final; el eje báltico se nombra aquí y no se desarrolla en el cuerpo del libro.
«His essays have been translated into English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Czech, Serbo-Croatian and Latvian.» — nota biográfica final, sobre la difusión de la obra de Biglino.
«He wrote the play Ak, the Chant of the Cathars, performed in 2006 with Eugenio Allegri and the participation of Cochi Ponzoni, the writer Maurizio Maggiani and the singer Antonella Ruggiero» — nota biográfica de Cattaneo: el material cátaro de las pp. 187-199 y 194-195 tiene antecedente en su propia obra teatral.
«Encountering Mauro Biglino’s work,” he says, “is a deeply healthy, stimulating and inevitably destabilizing. It forces us to reconsider the solidity of the awareness that nourishes many of our common beliefs. And it is a testament to the courage that is needed, today more than ever, to claim the full dignity of free research.» — Giorgio Cattaneo en primera persona; es el único lugar del libro donde el narrador habla como yo y firma su posición sobre su entrevistado.
Conceptos tratados
Elohim — Término plural que la obra se niega a traducir por Dios: designaría a individuos de carne y hueso, mortales y tecnológicamente superiores, y Biglino declara que nadie hoy puede traducirlo correctamente.
Yahweh — Uno entre varios Elohim, asignado por Elyon a la familia de Jacob; el texto lo llama Ish Milchamah, hombre de guerra, y aparece por primera vez con la descendencia de Set.
Kavod — Traducido como gloria, se lee como objeto pesado y potente que se eleva, se desplaza, aterriza y hace ruido, y que mata si se lo mira de frente.
Ruach — Traducido como espíritu, se lee como masa de aire en movimiento o medio de transporte mayor que el Kavod; en Génesis 1:2 se cierne sobre las aguas con el verbo del ave de presa.
Elyon — Superlativo absoluto en las versiones corrientes; para la obra significa el que está arriba, y en el salmo 82 preside la asamblea de los Elohim y reparte los pueblos entre ellos.
El Shadday — Traducido como Omnipotente; la obra propone señor de las estepas apoyándose en la exégesis católica, y el glosario final ordena dejarlo sin traducir.
Malachim — Mensajeros, guardianes y ejecutores de órdenes, con cuerpo, hambre y capacidad de hacer daño; los Padres de la Iglesia los habrían convertido en entidades espirituales.
Keruvim — Dos tipos en el texto: el dispositivo de comunicación sobre el Arca y una máquina volante monoplaza que Yahweh monta; la raíz apunta al acto de cubrir.
Gan Eden — Jardín cercado y protegido de la región de Edén, leído como laboratorio experimental donde los Elohim ensayan alimentos y fabrican a los Adamitas; sería uno entre varios Gan repartidos por el planeta.
Adamitas — Linaje fabricado con alto porcentaje de material genético de los Elohim, no antepasados de la humanidad entera sino fundadores de una línea; su expulsión se lee como medida preventiva.
Anunnaki — Los Anunna sumerio-acadios, que la obra identifica con los Elohim bíblicos por raíz semítica y por función, y cuya pluralidad la academia acepta mientras clasifica el mismo material como mitología.
Olam — Mal traducido como eternidad; significaría tiempo o lugar de duración desconocida, y el propio rabino Di Segni lo confirma dentro del libro.
Shakhar — Bebida embriagante que Yahweh pide casi a diario, calculada en tres a cinco litros; el término designa a la vez la bebida y el acto de embriagarse y decir sinsentidos.
Tselem — Término con que el texto describe la fabricación de los primeros Adamitas y que reaparece, solo una vez más, en el nacimiento de Set.
Gematría (aritmética de las letras) — Cómputo numérico de las letras hebreas: la obra lo aplica al 666 de Nerón y consigna su uso para la cifra de los seis millones y para la fecha de 1948, sin suscribir el segundo.
Crítica de fuentes (criterios de inclusión y descarte) — Eje del libro: originales perdidos, copias de copias, doscientas cincuenta variantes de Isaías entre Qumrán y el texto masorético, cánones divergentes y once libros citados que faltan.
Tetragrammaton (el Nombre de cuatro letras) — YHWH sin vocales: la obra sostiene que la forma Yahweh es medieval, obra de los masoretas, y que no se sabe en qué lengua se pronunció ni qué significa.
Cadena de transmisión (quién tomó de quién) — Eusebio de Cesarea cita a Filón de Biblos que cita a Sanjuniatón: la obra declara la cadena entera y su cronología antes de usarla contra la alegoría.
Secreto (lo que se jura no fijar por escrito) — Conocimiento reservado a unos pocos: los libros ocultos del templo de Amón, el saber que los Vigilantes no debían transmitir y la máxima de que a las masas se les da la interpretación útil al poder.
Gnosis (conocimiento salvífico) — La obra sitúa del lado gnóstico al evangelio de Juan y a buena parte de la literatura de Nag Hammadi, y trae el Demiurgo gnóstico junto al Dios extranjero de los cátaros.
Iniciación (recepción por grados / metamorfosis del ser) — El libro registra la lectura iniciática ajena —el pesebre franciscano como iniciación egipcia disfrazada, los circuitos iniciáticos del Great Work— y la consigna sin hacerla suya.
Prodigio (prodigium, portentum, ostentum) — Apariciones aéreas de Núremberg (1561) y Basilea (1566), las armas celestes de Jerusalén en el 70 y la nube del Milagro de la nieve, leídas como sucesos observados y no como signos.