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My daughter Anna was reading her English Standard Version recently and came across this translation of Ecclesiastes 10:2:

A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.

Even though I know it's not, it is hard not to see this as a prophecy of our current political situation. LOL!

KeithThroop 9 Oct 27
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1

Left handedness is associated with higher mutational load.

wolfhnd Level 8 Oct 27, 2020
1

Do you have any suggestions/thoughts toward translations? I'm wading in the NIV because I like how it attempts presenting paragraphs.

I'll jump on your point though...

A wise man jumps on the dominant wisdom, the wisdom at hand. The dominant hand. The wisdom of Ages.

The fool looks left, offhand, where options abound. But no confidence...no certainty.

Is the fool wrong to look?

govols Level 8 Oct 27, 2020

Frankly, I prefer translations that opt for the formal equivalence approach, such as the New American Standard Bible, the New King James Version, or the English Standard Version. As I recall, the late textual critic, Bruce Metzger, put forth the maxim, "Literal as possible, free as necessary," when translating, and I think that is pretty good. That is what these translations seem to shoot for.

As for the text I cited above, it is Hebrew poetry, and it is obviously speaking figuratively, using the right hand (which was typically the dominant hand, as you have said) as a metaphor for the correct direction to go. My daughter and I just found some humor in the way the ESV rendering sounded to our ears in this current environment, with which it obviously has nothing to do.

2

Reminds me of something I read as well. Left is always the evil side. lol Check this out.

In Western esotericism the Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path are the dichotomy between two opposing approaches to magic. This terminology is used in various groups involved in the occult and ceremonial magic. In some definitions, the Left-Hand Path is equated with malicious black magic or black shamanism, while the Right-Hand Path with benevolent white magic. Other occultists have criticised this definition, believing that the Left–Right dichotomy refers merely to different kinds of working and does not necessarily connote good or bad magical actions.

In more recent definitions, which base themselves on the terms' origins in Indian Tantra, the Right-Hand Path, or RHP, is seen as a definition for those magical groups that follow specific ethical codes and adopt social convention, while the Left-Hand Path adopts the opposite attitude, espousing the breaking of taboo and the abandoning of set morality.

Another distinguishing characteristic separating the two is based upon the aim of the practitioner. Right-handed path practitioners tend to work towards ascending their soul towards ultimate union (or reunion) with the divine source, returning to heaven, allegorically alluded to as restoration or climbing back up the ladder after the "great fall". In doing this, they embrace the light and try to annihilate anything they regard as "dark" or "evil". On the other hand, left-handed path practitioners do not see this as the ultimate aim but a step towards their goal. Left-handed path practitioners embrace the dark as well as the light in order to invoke the alchemical formula solve et coagula ("dissolve and precipitate" ), confronting the negative in order to transmute it into desirable qualities.

..................................

Right-Hand PathThe Right-Hand Path is commonly thought to refer to magical or religious groups which adhere to a certain set of characteristics:

  • They divide the concepts of mind, body and spirit into three separate, albeit interrelated, entities.

  • They adhere to a specific moral code and a belief in some form of judgement, such as karma or the Threefold Law.

The occultist Dion Fortune considered Abrahamic religions to be RHP.Left-Hand Path

The historian Dave Evans studied self-professed followers of the Left-Hand Path in the early 21st century, making several observations about their practices:

  • They often reject societal convention and the status quo, which some suggest is in a search for spiritual freedom. As a part of this, LHP followers embrace magical techniques that would traditionally be viewed as taboo, for instance using sex magic or embracing Satanic imagery. As Mogg Morgan wrote, the "breaking of taboos makes magic more potent and can lead to reintegration and liberation, [for example] the eating of meat in a vegetarian community can have the same liberating effect as anal intercourse in a sexually inhibited straight society."

  • They often question religious or moral dogma, instead adhering to forms of personal anarchism.

  • They often embrace sexuality and incorporate it into magical ritual.

Criticism

Criticism of both terms has come from various occultists. The Magister of the Cultus Sabbati, Andrew D. Chumbley, stated that they were simply "theoretical constructs" that were "without definitive objectivity", and that nonetheless, both forms could be employed by the magician. He used the analogy of a person having two hands, a right and a left, both of which served the same master. Similar sentiments were expressed by the Wiccan High Priest John Belham-Payne, who stated that "For me, magic is magic."

.......................................

History of the terms Left-Hand and Right-Hand Path

Vamachara, Main article: VamacharaVāmācāra is a Sanskrit term meaning "left-handed attainment" and is synonymous with Left-Hand Path or Left-path (Sanskrit: Vāmamārga). It is used to describe a particular mode of worship or spiritual practice (Sanskrit: sadhana) that is not only heterodox (Sanskrit: Nāstika) to standard Vedic injunction, but extreme in comparison to prevailing cultural norms. These practices are often generally considered to be Tantric in orientation. The converse term to Vāmācāra is Dakshinachara (glossed "Right-Hand Path" ) which is used to refer not only to orthodox (Āstika) sects but to modes of spirituality that engage in spiritual practices that not only accord with Vedic injunction but are generally agreeable to prevailing cultural norms. That said, left-handed and right-handed modes of practice may be evident in both orthodox and heterodox schools of Dharmic religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism and are a matter of taste, culture, proclivity, initiation, sadhana and dharmic lineage (parampara).

..................................

Tantra and Madame Blavatsky

The Western use of the terms Left-Hand Path and Right Hand-Path originated with Madame Blavatsky, a 19th-century occultist who founded the Theosophical Society. She had travelled across parts of southern Asia and claimed to have met with many mystics and magical practitioners in India and Tibet. She developed the term Left-Hand Path as a translation of the term Vamachara, an Indian Tantric practice that emphasised the breaking of Hindu societal taboos by having sexual intercourse in ritual, drinking alcohol, eating meat and assembling in graveyards, as a part of the spiritual practice. The term Vamachara literally meant "the left-hand way" in Sanskrit, and it was from this that Blavatsky first coined the term.

Returning to Europe, Blavatsky began using the term. It was relatively easy for her to associate left with evil in many European countries, where it already had an association with many negative things; as the historian Dave Evans noted, homosexuals were referred to as "left-handed", and while in Protestant nations Roman Catholics were called "left-footers".Adoption into the western esoteric tradition

In New York, Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society with several other people in 1875. She set about writing several books, including Isis Unveiled (1877) in which she introduced the terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path, firmly stating that she herself followed the RHP, and that followers of the LHP were practitioners of Black Magic who were a threat to society. The occult community soon picked up on her newly introduced duality, which, according to historian Dave Evans, "had not been known before" in the Western Esoteric Tradition. For instance, Dion Fortune, the founder of an esoteric magical group (the Society of the Inner Light) also took the side of the RHP, making the claim that "black magicians", or followers of the LHP, were homosexuals and that Indian servants might use malicious magical rites devoted to the goddess Kali against their European masters.

Aleister Crowley further altered and popularized the term in certain occult circles, referring to a "Brother of the Left-Hand Path", or a "Black Brother", as one who failed to attain the grade of Magister Templi in Crowley's system of ceremonial magic. Crowley also referred to the Left-Hand Path when describing the point at which the Adeptus Exemptus (such as his old Christian mentor, Macgregor Mathers) chooses to cross the Abyss, which is the location of Choronzon and the illusory eleventh Sephira, which is Da'ath or Knowledge. In this example, the adept must surrender all, including the guidance of his Holy Guardian Angel, and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated Karma is sufficient, and if he has been utterly thorough in his own self-destruction, he becomes a "babe of the abyss", arising as a Star in the Crowleyan system. On the other hand, if he retains some fragment of ego, or if he fears to cross, he then becomes encysted. The layers of his self, which he could have shed in the Abyss, ossify around him. He is then titled a "Brother of the Left-Hand Path", who will eventually be broken up and disintegrated against his will, since he failed to choose voluntary disintegration. Crowley associated all this with "Mary, a blasphemy against BABALON", and with the celibacy of Christian clergy.

Another of those figures that Fortune considered to be a follower of the LHP was Arthur Edward Waite, who did not recognise these terms, and acknowledged that they were newly introduced and that in any case he believed the terms LHP and RHP to be distinct from black and white magic. However, despite Waite's attempts to distinguish the two, the equation of the LHP with Black Magic was propagated more widely in the fiction of Dennis Wheatley; Wheatley also conflated the two with Satanism and also the political ideology of communism, which he viewed as a threat to traditional British society. In one of his novels, Strange Conflict (1941), he stated that:The Order of the Left-Hand Path... has its adepts... the Way of Darkness is perpetuated in the horrible Voodoo cult which had its origins in Madagascar and has held Africa, the Dark Continent, in its grip for centuries.

Kulārṇava Tantra (Skt., 'ocean of the family Tantra'😉. A text (1000-1400 CE) of the Kaula tradition advocating various forms of Tantric worship, including the five 'Ms' (pañcamakāra). Pañca-makāra or pañca-tattva. Five ritual ingredients whose first letter is ‘m’: madya (wine or alcoholic beverage), maṃsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudrā (parched grain), and maithuna (sexual intercourse). The five Ms are central to Tantric liturgy, and are interpreted, either literally by left-hand (vāmācāra) sects such as the Kaulas and Kāpālikas, or symbolically by right-hand (dakṣinācāra) sects. The left-hand groups seek perfection and power (siddhi) through the use of prohibited substances.

..................................

Later 20th and 21st centuries

In the latter half of the 20th century various groups arose that self-professedly described themselves as LHP, but did not consider themselves as following Black Magic. In 1975, Kenneth Grant, a student of Aleister Crowley, explained in Cults of the Shadow that he and his group, the Typhonian Order, practiced the LHP. Grant's usage takes meaning from its roots in eastern Tantra; Grant states that it is about challenging taboos, but that it should be used in conjunction with the RHP to achieve balance.

When Anton Szandor LaVey was developing his form of LaVeyan Satanism during the 1960s, he emphasised the rejection of traditional Christian morality and as such labelled his new philosophy to be a form of the Left-Hand Path. In his The Satanic Bible, he wrote that "Satanism is not a white light religion; it is a religion of the flesh, the mundane, the carnal—all of which are ruled by Satan, the personification of the Left-Hand Path."

In Russia there is a tradition of Left-Hand Path practices within the Rodnover community under the influence of Volhv Veleslav,and within the Odinist community with Askr Svarte, and in England with Nikarev Leshy. Veleslav has also written numerous books on Tantra and the Left-Hand Path.

Stephen E. Flowers, Ph.D. of the Temple of Set states in his book Lords of the Left Hand Path: A History of Spiritual Dissent there are two criteria to be considered a true Lord of the Left-Hand Path and they are Self-Deification and Antinomianism.

3

New International Version
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.

New Living Translation
A wise person chooses the right road; a fool takes the wrong one.

English Standard Version
A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right, but a fool’s heart to the left.

Berean Study Bible
A wise man’s heart inclines to the right, but the heart of a fool to the left.

New American Standard Bible
A wise man's heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him toward the left.

New King James Version
A wise man’s heart is at his right hand, But a fool’s heart at his left.

King James Bible
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

Christian Standard Bible
A wise person's heart goes to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.

Contemporary English Version
Sensible thoughts lead you to do right; foolish thoughts lead you to do wrong.

Good News Translation
It is natural for the wise to do the right thing and for fools to do the wrong thing.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
A wise man's heart goes to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.

International Standard Version
A wise man's heart tends toward his right, but a fool's heart tends toward his left.

NET Bible
A wise person's good sense protects him, but a fool's lack of sense leaves him vulnerable.

New Heart English Bible
A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left.

A Faithful Version
A man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
A wise person's heart leads the right way. The heart of a fool leads the wrong way.

JPS Tanakh 1917
A wise man's understanding is at his right hand; But a fool's understanding at his left.

New American Standard 1977
A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left.

King James 2000 Bible
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

American King James Version
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

American Standard Version
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.
Douay-Rheims Bible
The heart of a wise man is in his right hand, and the heart of a fool is in his left hand.

Darby Bible Translation
The heart of a wise [man] is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

English Revised Version
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.

Webster's Bible Translation
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart is at his left.

World English Bible
A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left.

Young's Literal Translation
The heart of the wise is at his right hand, And the heart of a fool at his left.

Interesting choice of Left and Right... not Right and Wrong... for me being a Left wing Conservative, I have issues with the Left terminology. Many say that Jesus would have been Leftist in today's world... but Left vs Right and Progressive vs Conservative... are not the same thing they lie on separate axes.

3

The right hand was the strong hand, the social hand that dipped out of the common pot at meals. The left hand, the sinister hand, was used for wiping butts.

Right. You are on the right track dealing with what the text actually means. I was just seeing the humor in how it sounded in our context. 🙂

Howdy @KeithThroop,

I once quoted Proverbs 29:2 to a DI. "He who makes haste with his feet, errs"

It's these kind of exegetical differences that end up in the exercise pit, doing countless pushups, while a DI kicks sand in your face... 😆

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