Hi, Jason.

It's not just Hebrew. Virtually every language is difficult to translate into another language.

Linguists recognize at least two types of translations, literal and accurate. Literal translations are simple, word-for-word translations. Accurate translations are when the translator takes such things as context, politics, popular expressions, slang, etc. into account. Therefore, "accurate" translations may more closely reveal the intent and meaning of the original language, but they are limited by the training and knowledge of the translator.

Let me give you an example of trying to translate a simple English sentence:

John said, "She looks bad."

As you probably know, the word "bad" can mean "not good," or depending upon the context, it could actually mean "very good" or "dangerous" or "sexual."

A literal translation into a foreign language would mean, "John said, 'She doesn't look good." An accurate translation would give something different.

In the book "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross," John Allegro tells of where Jesus' disciples ask him what to do because the tax collectors are coming for money. He tells them to cast their money into the sea. But this is actually a play on words, indicating that what he meant was they should tell the tax collectors to stick it up their a$$es! If you're going to present Jesus as a revolutionary, that makes far more sense to me.

to make things a bit more complex.......the torah scroll (5 books of moses), for example, only contains the hebrew letters, but not the vowels. in hebrew, the vowels are written under the letters. therefore, the same word or group of letters with different vowels could have a different meaning. why did the ancient scholars leave out the vowels? to be ambigous? to save time in writing? to give us all something to discuss or argue about? its anyone's guess......

also, some the ancient texts are written in Aramaic and not in hebrew.............

suggest getting multiple translations when ever possible

I do this with the Tao de Ching as well.........I have 4 different translations.......

Actually you can make some serious headway if you just focus on getting the Hebrew God name behind the generic word for God in most of the English translations. There are various Hebrew God names such as YHVH, Elohim, Shekinah, El-Shaddai, etc. that are making reference to a particular God aspect which may help bring out more meaning to a particular phrase or section of content.

If you want to get anywhere close to an esoteric understanding of the text you will need to do this since not only are words important but the letters themselves are intricate clues into the hidden meaning of what is being presented. A good site to get at the hidden meaning of the Hebrew letters is www.inner.org/hebleter/default.htm

The best bible to use to get to the Hebrew IMO is the The Stone Edition's Tanach www.amazon.com/Tanach-Twe...gy_b_text_b where you can see both the Hebrew and English and the various God names are disinguished e.g. YHVH is called Hashem (meaning the name).