. . . exegesis per ELOHIM as a female noun:

Verna Craig rowan2 at cpnw.net
Mon Nov 20 13:09:33 EST 2000


    Andrew Jukes, in a footnote 2 in his book The Names of God states "... As to the
view of some, that the word "Elohim" is derived directly from El (la))))))which
signifies "strong" or "mighty," it may perhaps suffice to say that the plural of El is
Elim, not Elohim. God surely may be and is called both"El" (Gen. xiv.20, and in many
other places,) and "Elim," (as in Psalm xxix.1; and elsewhere) that is "The Mighty;"
but the letter H in "Elohim" points to the true etymology of the name, from hla, "to
swear"... (pg.18)
    Why can't this word originally  have been feminine with masculine endings added
later. This seems to be what happened to the word for field, hdc, which stems from the
word "breast", hdc.  In this case a woman or female animal's breasts are now considered
masculine which is the only exception I could find  to the rule that organs of the body
coming in pairs are feminine.
    I am very interested in this hidden history within the Hebrew Grammar. The roots of
Hebrew language come from it's nomatic and agricultural roots, and seem to have had a
more feminine presence than is now apparent. Any information on this is very welcome!
VernaLee Craig


Shoshanna Walker wrote:

> Question by way of Ron Sebring "Assuming ELOHIM is a female noun
> with a male plural ending, how should we translate the pronouns
> that refer to it into a gender neutral language like English,
> and still be true to the text?"  Any exegesis?  Harold  Helm
>
> Who says it is a female noun?
>
> What is the noun, exactly?
>
> Sorry, I am new to this list, and familiar with Biblical Hebrew, and
> fluent in spoken Hebrew, but not from a scientific linguistic point
> of view
>
> Shoshanna
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [rosewalk at concentric.net]
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to
> $subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew at franklin.oit.unc.edu.
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [rowan2 at cpnw.net]
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to $subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew at franklin.oit.unc.edu.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/attachments/20001120/96a313b0/attachment.html 


More information about the b-hebrew mailing list