Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

>
>
> At 09:24 2/8/2003, you wrote:
> >I teach my students of Hebrew that they should read adonay
> or elohim when
> >they meet YHWH in the text, as you probably do as well. When they
> >translate the text, they are free to use "the Lord", "Yahweh", or
> >"Jehovah", or "Yahu".  Why would it be "a very unwelcome
> situation" if
> >people said Yahweh? I would view it as a very welcome situation.
>
> I can't speak to this with any scholarly credentials, but I
> *will* say that
> as an observant Jew I found it problematic.  In fact, I
> dropped out of a
> course where a teacher asked that it be read "as written".
>
> There may not be any scholarly warrant for substitution, but
> there is at
> least a thousand or two years of Jewish tradition and I believe that
> deserves respect.
Dear Jane,
I disagree.  I personally think that a whole lot that is wrong
in Christian-Jewish relations would be healed if YHWH were
written in Christian OTs, and if the name Yahweh or Yahu were said.
I think that ought to be done in temples and synagogues too.
I brought a Christian friend to temple with me once and she was
surprised and shocked to learn that Jews pray to the Lord too!
Gods and people have names just for that very reason, to avoid
confusion. God has a name, I suggest we use it.
It boggles the mind to me how people are concerned about offending Jews
on this one thing, when they certainly don't mind offending them on a
dozen other
things. Their solicitude is touching, but I suspect the real reason is
to
facilitate the confusion between the persons, as has been said before on
this list.
Best,
Liz
>
> Jane Harper
>
> Every complex problem has a solution that is simple, direct,
> plausible, and
> wrong. -- H.L. Mencken
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew