History Forum / General / Archaeology / December 2006

HEBREW IS GREEK

THE WORK OF JOSEPH YAHUDA

A book that "mysteriously disappeared" soon after its publication.

In 1982, a suppressed, ages-old, historical truth, was resurrected through
the publication of a book by Becket Publications of Oxford, England (ISBN O
7289 0013 O). The book, published in English, and titled Hebrew is Greek,
was written by lawyer, linguist and researcher, Joseph Yahuda, the son of
Isaac Benjamin Ezekiel Yahuda, an ethnic Jew and longtime researcher and
linguist. Though Jewish both by nationality and religion, J. Yahuda could be
considered a Greek-- according to Isocrates' definition of a Hellene [see
definition below. ed.], since his decades-long, unbiased, and meticulously
thorough search reveals the linguistic relationship of numerous groups of
words in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic. Work that was published without fear or
hesitation by a scholar whose only concern was for the discovery of the
truth.

Following the book's publication, and while only a limited number of copies
circulated for a few fortunate individuals, the book disappeared from the
face of the earth. It was as if an invisible hand intervened and blocked its
circulation. It cannot be found at any public library, it is not sold at any
bookstore on earth, not even in a curiosity or antique shop. [Rare book
dealers, in the U.S. and the U.K., have told TGR that there have been
inquiries after the book, but that they have been unable to locate a copy
anywhere. ed.] The only information available about the book throughout the
world is its title. No book reviews on this book were ever published,
neither positive nor negative, moderate or offensive. Nor, it seems, has
there been any other evaluation of the work. One must eventually come to the
inescapable conclusion that every one of the copies originally published was
somehow withdrawn through some sort of a secret operation with a global
reach.

Concerns posed by another Jewish intellectual who wrote the preface of the
book.

The research published in the book covers 718 pages. The introduction was
written by Jewish professor Saul Levin, though no enthusiasm on his part was
evident in his introduction. He admits that following the 1977 publication
of his book entitled, The Indo-European and Semitic Languages, J. Yahuda got
in touch with him, and they maintained a fruitful relationship through
correspondence, though they never actually met in person. The reason for the
interest in J. Yahuda expressed by S. Levin, as he himself confessed, was
the publication of several writings by J. Yahuda, such as the La Palestine
Revisite, written in 1928, Law and Life According to Hebrew Thought (1932)
and This Democracy (n.d.), published by Pitman. Professor Levin learned of
the contents of the book [from the proofs which were sent to him from time
to time] for which he wrote the introduction gradually, as it had already
been sent to the printer. As Professor Levin disclosed: "It was J. Yahuda's
congeniality and my inherent curiosity that did not allow me to refuse the
writing of the introduction." [For a better understanding as to why
Professor Levin was not enthusiastic about writing the introduction,
consider the fact that] the black Jew, Martin Bernal, has stated: "Saul
Levin was among the many Jewish individuals who worked on the publication of
[my] book, Black Athena." A book which has been deemed to be a disgrace and
a discredit to serious scholarship by the vast majority of specialists who
have read it.

Joseph Yahuda speaks about his work

In the preface of his book, J. Yahuda notes:

This ecumenical research will be reviewed by three separate specialists, one
for each language researched, although each specialist does have knowledge
of the other two languages. This is not an error committed only by me. I
attempted repeatedly, yet unsuccessfully, to find more scholars who would be
willing to assist me in my quests. As an example of what I was up against,
at the very beginning of an hours-long meeting, one potential colleague
exclaimed: "All of this is garbage and we are all wasting our time." My
answer was: "Both you, and I, will be judged for the words we say, whenever
we discuss my work." I hold no hostility or bitterness because of such
small-minded opposition to my belief. In fact, during the progress of my
research, I twice attempted to arouse [this man's] interest, but in vain. A
little while after the meeting referred to above, I mentioned his degrading
comment to Christodoulos Hourmouzios, a graduate of the University of
Athens, and an acknowledged specialist on Homer, and he said: ' I think you
are one of the greatest linguists I know'; he promised complete cooperation
with me. Unfortunately, before we could begin our work, he passed away.

"There were others who admitted that they had been convinced; that something
did really exist in my theory. However, they did think that my belief in the
correspondence of Hebrew with Greek was rather exaggerated. They said I was
too ambitious, and suggested, for my own good, that I expect less and adopt
a 'less controversial view.' One of them, Sir Leon Simon (A British Lord of
Jewish descent), a known classicist who knew Hebrew, attended my first
lecture on the issue on the evening of Jan. 14th, 1959.He did this even
though he was old and had to travel a long distance in bad weather and heavy
fog. He introduced me, briefly and carefully, not wanting to commit himself
to any decision until the end of my speech. Then, before the audience was
asked to pose questions, he said the following, which I noted: 'I don't
believe that everyone will agree with everything J. Yahuda has told us, as
he may have thought that everyone understood what he was saying. Despite any
doubts that may exist, I am sure of one thing. He has resolved a mystery
that had created confusion for scholars for the past 2.000 years. For, if he
is correct in stating that many Greek words that begin with sk were
transformed in Hebrew as if sk was a digraph [a combination of two letters
to make one simple sound. ed.], or one of the two letters lost, then Homer
was not wrong when he left the vrachi [ abbreviated ] vowel at the beginning
of the word Skamandros, as in his famous line: 'On Cantho%n kaleousi theoi%,
a%ndre*s de Ska%mandron'. [The Gods called Xanthos, mortal men Skamandros.
ed.] I also had a fruitful interview with a scholar of international fame,
which was then followed by a series of exchanges of correspondence. This
correspondence ceased after he sent me a note, wherein he wrote: 'It could
also be possible that you would say that the English word ball comes from
the Greek ba%llw, or that you discover a connection between chow and show
since chows are exhibited at shows.

"The result was that I was obliged to fall back on my own sources, and to
depend only on my own efforts, thus devoting my free time to this research
for the past 30 years or more. Two things kept me going: the unfailing
support of my wife, Cecile, and the unprecedented emotions we felt with
every new discovery. When my wife was asked by a friend how she was sure of
my work, since she knew neither Greek nor Hebrew, she answered: 'But, I know
my husband. He hates speculating, he always insists on finding proof. As a
lawyer, he is able to evaluate this proof. He tells me that he has plenty of
proof that is convincing, and I believe him.' There is truly a plethora of
'proof that is convincing' which I have attempted to make available, not
only to those technically specialized, but also to interested,
non-specialist researchers."

Yahuda realizes the significance of Greek Civilization

"I was somewhat familiar with the Bible, as stated above. My brother,
Solomon, and I learned the New Testament in Hebrew translation from a copy
that my father had, as part of his personal library. For years, the distant
Biblical past was alive in my mind: I lived with the vision of the pyramids
to such an extent, and my passion for the Bible was so great, that I
developed hostile feelings for the Greeks and Romans. Strangely, this
hostility did not involve the Egyptians, who were our enemies, had been the
enemies of our forefathers and had so deeply influenced post-Biblical
Hebrew. Neither had I been able to learn more than the necessary Latin
needed for my law education and practice. However, my feelings for the
Greeks and Romans have changed radically since then. Now I realize that our
differences were similar to those of a civil war, as fratricidal as the
taking of Troy had been, for I became convinced that the Jews are of Greek
descent. This revolutionary transformation took place around the time I was
thirty years old, following the publishing of my book Law and Life according
to Hebrew Thought. That year (1932), I became interested in biology as a
'hobby'. During my haphazard study of the issue, I came across various Greek
words that were strikingly similar to the Hebrew words of the Bible, and I
drew the conclusion that the Greeks had borrowed them from us. I began
debating the idea of whether or not I should one day begin a systematic
comparison of the two languages. At that time, I was still fascinated with
the more traditional studies, and, like everyone else, I believed without a
doubt that the Semitic languages were Semitic and the Aryan languages were
Aryan. These two could not be mixed. At the same time, though, I was
thinking that it would be interesting to collect anddeconstruct a complete
list of groups of similar words so as to demonstrate the degree of influence
of Hebrew on Greek at the time before Alexander the Great (considering that
the reverse influence became stronger following his conquests). I knew very
little of where this research would lead me and what the results would show.

"I had such little knowledge of Greek that all I knew were the first letters
of the alphabet, knowledge that I had acquired by chance during my studies
of mathematics and geometry. I remember asking my friend Gerald Emanuel, in
a teashop in 1932, to write the whole Greek alphabet on the bottom of a
half-written page. The years passed, but when I published my book Biology
and New Medicine in 1951, I then had the opportunity to spend all of my free
time on researching those possible links that I suspected existed between
Biblical Hebrew and Greek. Following the acquisition of some rudimentary
knowledge of Greek grammar, I submerged into the translation of the
Septuagint, solely based on my memory of the meaning of the numerous pages
that I had chosen to read. Then I read Homer, comparing him to the Bible.
One page from the translation of the Iliad, one page from the Old Testament,
line for line, page by page; I started with Genesis and the first book of
the Iliad, along with the last book of the Odyssey and the 2nd book of
'Chronicles.' Day after day, the list of similar words grew longer, until it
reached 600 words -- including words related to different views and
activities of life -- which could not be attributed only to the borrowing
factor. In any case, history has not witnessed circumstances where such
elaborate borrowing would be possible on such a large scale. I was convinced
that this phenomenon went past the limits of borrowing, reaching the limits
of a genetic relationship. The door of genealogical descent stood before me
and I could not attempt to pass through it or climb above it. It should open
freely and widely and the key to this was the grammar. The only grammatical
characteristics that I knew of that were common to both Greek and Hebrew,
concerned the definite article and the dual number nouns [count nouns. ed.].
I stopped reading and began thinking and re-thinking the results of my
non-processed research. I used the materials I had: analyzing, classifying,
comparing these with the Biblical variations and the dialectic interchanges
of the Greek letters, selecting specific words to be compared. Thus, my
theory began to develop. Some of the Greek dialectic letters could be used
interchangeably, such as the letters 'k' and 't', 'o' and 'a', 's' and 'd.'
I also noted a curious transformation with Hebrew words: a suffix to a Greek
word changed to a prefix in a Hebrew word. Early on during my research, I
tested the exactness of the words and verified their meanings. As the number
of tests increased, the more effective my research became, and the
confidence in my theory rose.

"From the beginning, I based a lot of my work on Arabic. With my theory, it
became possible for me to correct the translation of the Septuagint, using
the Septuagint and the translation of the Bible, using the Bible. These
discoveries cured me of my dyslexia in relationship to Greek and Hebrew and
made me capable of reading a Hebrew word as if it had been a variation of
the word. I formed a series of phonetic and morphology rules. I gradually
gathered a number of valuable facts. Some examples are that the declension
dotiki [dative] exists in Hebrew, that the masculine plural is the same in
Hebrew and Greek, and that, in general, a compound Greek verb is equivalent
to a Hebrew compound verb. I estimate that 9 out of each 10 words of the
[Jewish] Bible can be proved to have a purely Greek equivalent. Many issues
were resolved which prove that the Greeks and Jews hold some customs and
religious convictions in common, whereas the Hebrew language is proven to be
richer and more beautiful than believed until today because of the existence
of these groups of words. This whole matter is, in practice, consistent with
the following two proposals: Biblical Hebrew is Greek; and, the Jews are
Asian Greeks. In reality, the conclusion of this massive, extended and
complicated research can be summarized in the following brief sentence:
Hebrew is 'Greek wearing a mask.'"

An example for the rest of his co-religionists

As already stated, the research of J. Yahuda restores part of a universal
truth that has fallen into oblivion for millennia. Not only is the Hebrew
language "Greek wearing a mask" (in other words, a distorted version of
Greek), but, as we have announced at international conventions, there is no
other language on the face of the earth except Greek. A few years ago, we
made this statement at a convention of the Literary Society Parnassos,
titled: "The Ecumenical Character of the Greek Language," where we used
texts and images to prove this statement. All other languages are just
descendants or distorted dialects of Greek, adopted by the peoples.

Finally, we present one of the tables compiled by the undaunted scholar, J.
Yahuda, where Hebrew letters, along with their pronunciation in Hebrew
appear on the left, the equivalent Greek letters and their pronunciation in
the middle, and the Arabic letters and pronunciation on the right. In the
preface, just above the table shown below, Yahuda's first theorem is
written, to wit: "The Greek and Hebrew alphabets demonstrate striking
similarity insofar as the order of the letters is concerned, their names,
their shapes and their pronunciation."

We cannot omit to express our admiration for this great man, who, defying
the forces of darkness and medieval ignorance, proved to be an unbiased
scholar, unburdened by preconceived dogma and purposeful deception. A man
who broke the bonds of mischievous misinformation so prevalent in [the past]
century, and dared to defy traditional nationalistic and racist fanaticism
while declaring a revolution against the international forces of power. He
has achieved the level of a true Hellene. After discovering the truth, he
struggled to make it known, he revealed it and he published it without fear.
His acts were acts of patriotism, since he has raised his compatriots to a
level approaching the Greeks. He called them "Asian Greeks." His life and
work truly pronounce him to be of equal value to a Greek, in contrast with
those of his compatriots who have denounced him and his book. Is it because
they are afraid or is it because they are unable to follow in his footsteps?

In Conclusion

Yahuda has scientifically proven that both Hebrew and Arabic are Greek in
their origin, as is true with the other languages of the world. It is to be
regretted that the speakers of this distorted Greek dialect do not take
advantage of this, so as to elevate themselves to free and Christ-loving
Greeks, as their compatriot Yahuda has done. Many of them prefer to live in
the dark; It is a fact to be pitied that some are fanatics who hate
everything Greek, especially her history and her language. In the past, many
such men appeared in the Roman State as politicians, academics or
administrators in the public sector, and fought against everything that was
Greek. Nowadays, such men cooperate with the global powers that are
propelling the world toward destruction. A destruction that can only be
avoided by a rebirth of the only salvation for humanity: Greek Civilization.

Primary Source

This article was written by the linguist and researcher, Konstantinos G.
Georganas, for Davlos. February 1999 issue, pp.12931-12937. Translation by
staff. Emphasis not in original text was added.

Note: The great rhetorician, Isocrates (436-338 B.C.), gave the following
definition of a Hellene in his Panagyricus:

Athens has so far outrun the rest of mankind in thought and speech that her
disciples are the masters of the rest, and it is due to her that the word
"Greek" is not so much a term of birth as it is of mentality, and is applied
to a common culture rather than a common descent.