The clay golem, first created by Rabbi Loeb of Prague
I keep getting questions from friends asking what æmaeth and maeth mean, so I think it is high time for me to explain their meanings.
Before I begin explaining what the two words mean, I will give a brief history of a mythological creature of Kabbalistic origins known as the Golem. (Feel free to correct me if I am wrong) The Golem is an animated man of clay imbued with the power of life by a magical inscription known as the Shem. The Golem, created by a powerful rabbi, would protect the local Jewish ghetto (though not exclusively). The rabbi can also take life from the Golem away by removing the Shem from the Golem’s mouth or by editing the Shem. There have been famous incidents involving the Golem in history such as a Golem aiding in the defence of the ghetto of Prague during the 16th Century. Even Adam may be part of the Golem mythology as he was made of clay and given life through the power of creation, which is very similar to how the ancient Greek titan Prometheus created Man. Since then, the myth of the Golem has inspired countless graphic novels, with Marvel’s The Thing from Fantastic Four being the most famous.
Finally, the moment that we have all been waiting for, the meaning of æmaeth and maeth. Æmaeth is “truth” for Hebrew and is the word inscribed onto the Shem. The Kabbalist Jews believe that God is the truth and all life comes from that single source. Just one letter apart is maeth, which means “death”. By removing the Latin letter “æ”, “truth” becomes “death” and the Golem falls back onto the ground as lifeless clay once again. They believe that since God created all life, life can be just as easily returned to God. The reason why these two words caught my attention is that I believe that although truth and death appears to be like chalk and cheese, they are at the same time integrated. After all, they are but one letter apart.
14 Comments:
friend, your MSN crapper here, in for a short break from those examination notes (now damn the education system; it's just a cycle. derh) and i totally agree with you on the casino issue; was about to further elaborate but hey, it's your blog, not mine. hehs. and by the way, guy, keep up with such posts. i just love intellectual blogs; you know what i mean, don't you? :)
heya! man all the best for ur exams gal! go kick dem in da arse. lol the chaotic cycle. perhaps its chaotic cos we refuse to believe that a cycle will happen. hey go ahead and elaborate man. its a platform for discussion, yes? haha thur will be last post in a while cos im gonna go and serve the nation. sigh. hmmmm take care and we'll meet up mid-may, yes?
yes yes, mid-may, now don't we dare back out of it, it was planned ages ago, and (-winks) the nation need people like us two, remember the minority group we said we belong to? and ohhh, that links me back to the ancient secondary school days; you little boys and your cabbage clan. HAHS!
yes we wont back out, we'll see it to the end. heh heh. oh yeah cabbage clan. i almost forgot. ROFL. the rubbish we came up with. yeah gotta get da cabbage clan back together. hhaha
Hi there!
I've just created a new blog that I wanted to call aemaeth and then realised that it was already created
I knew this pair of word from a passage of the film Ghost in the Shell II but I really forgot it time ago, so thank you for remind it to me
Well, nice blog
See ya
Hey, im found this on Innocence (GITS2) aswell, but I recall Batau describing it as aemaeth meaning 'truth of God' and maeth meaning death.
Could be a mistransation at any stage or perhaps I got it wrong.
hello ! i aim ,to join the discussion. AEMAETH means in my limited doctrined perspective "the proof of god" or " truth in its ultimate absolute form" "gods true form, proven" "true form of truth". if AE is removed it means death. i got my translation of the word from comics and anime. as another here did. so i buff up that story aswell. one information source of mine derived from asia and another from the middle parts. both where latin, and used in sentence context where 1 word needs to explain the proof of god, and with the languages existant. evolved and devolved, 1 word explanations of anything meaning more than one thing no longer exists. there. got me an insult aimed towards language and lingo also. nice nice. alas i believe the golem parts of this probably grew up into minds after vivimancy and alchemy was pursued to higher extents. and the word was swallowed up into another form aswell as its original use. the word however is probably older than Golems. there is a 1000+ year gap in between the concept of gods true form and raising homunculi. maete means "mother" , could also be stretched to mean "elemental" which is soil or wind or water. which is used to nurture and grow life. not the seed. seed is considered animalistic or herbivore/carnivore. elemental is therefore the field in which one may plant seed. elemental as concept is feminine. thanks and bye.
Can you please tell me how to pronounce those two words?
I became interested in the idea of Æmaeth and maeth through Ghost in the Shell, as I also have an interest in myths and legends what interests me is within most pantheons there is usually an opposite.
That opposite is usually a TWIN but definitely a sibling, as
Æmaeth means TRUTH
maeth means DEATH
I was wondering if there was something to do with life/birth
I also came upon this posting because of Ghost in the Shell 2. Anyway time for another fun fact.
The Hebrew word for Truth is אֶמֶת which would be pronounced as "emet". The Hebrew word for dead is מֵת which would be pronounced as "met". Keep in mind that in both words the vowel E is pronounced in the same way as in the word egg.
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...and thats exactly how Batou pronounces it in the original Dub. I think even in the English Dub it's pronounced right. Only the Germans do fuck everything up. Like always.
Tried all three dubs: Japanese original with German Fansub (my absolute favorite), English Dub, German Dub. The last one is by far the worst, i.e. this one kills the most references, has wrong or completely missing emphasis of character voices (or the fact that these are speaking a complete different language) up to leaving out complete sentences. Considering that this is a highly philosophical movie which _lives_ from it's word worth, thats really frustrating.
Or did you know, that in the scene where they are hacking the lokus solus network at the submarine, their Sysadmins are speaking in chinese?
Anyway...
A complete different approach to Golems is the Discworld one. They also have their chems; but these are more of a programming card. Up to: when use the Golems receipt (as Golems are property which has to bought and selled) as aforesaid chem, you are setting him free. You just have to love Terry Pratchett :)
Damn. I have the Plague in my keyboard...
2022 seventeen years after you wrote this and the page is still archived in the internet!
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