Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Wagers <hyle AT gte.net>]

Irene,

>A name is an arbitrary sign
>tacked onto something but is not the thing itself---

It may be, but the ancients and the Bible obviously felt otherwise.
Names were, in fact, thought to be the essence of the thing.

<thus a sign of
>the deity dwells in the temple but not the deityh himself---compare
>to Exodus and Numbers where the tabernacle was thought to be the
>dwelling place of the deity.

>    In his vision of god,  Ezekiel is careful to say that he saw the
>"appearance" of Yaweh rather than Yaweh, himself.  (This pronoun is
>not meant to be a sexist designation but rather is used to indicate
>that this is a masculine god.)

Gee, thanks for clearing that up--I'd have been up all night.  ;-)

Will Wagers     hyle AT gte.net    "Reality is the best metaphor."