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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] yhwh pronunciation
  • Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 18:58:47 +0100

Dear Bearspecs,

BTW, what is your name?

We should always be careful when we quote old sources. But I am not sure that your argument about "the explicit name" is a necessary argument.

Louis Finkelstein, who has a much greater knowledge of rabbinic literature than I have, concluded in a similar way as I did. In "New Lights from the Prophets" (1969) p. 10 he writes after quoting the same words that I quote: "There could be no complaint against the Pharisees or the Morning-Bathers if they did not actually pronounce the Name. The argument between the Pharisees and the Morning-Bathers apparrently occurred, then, while both groups still pronounced the Tetragrammaton in prayer."

Finkelstein ( p 9) brings another quote from Tosefta Berakot 6 (7): "One who begins a prayer with yod heh /i.e. the Tetragrammaton, actually enunciating it/ and ends with yod heh /in the doxology/ is a sage. /One who begins with yod heh and ends with `aleph lamed /the cypher of `elohim/ is ignorant. /One who begins/ with `aleph lamed and ends with yod heh is an average person. One who begins with `aleph lamed and ends with `aleph lamed is following another way /i.e. is a sectarian/."

Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo

----- Original Message ----- From: <Bearpecs AT aol.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] yhwh pronunciation



In a message dated 7/24/2005 7:54:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
furuli AT online.no writes:

before you bathe. The Pharisees reply, "We complain of you Morning-bathers
because you mention the Name with a body which contains defilement."
If this was a typical dialogue between the two groups, and the Pharisees
originated around 100 B.C.E. it means that at the same time that the Qumran
people did not use the name, other groups did use it.


Be careful about using quotations from Talmud with regard to pronouncing
"the name" as relevant to the tetragrammaton. The rabbis generally use "the
name" to mean the name written as the tetragrammaton but pronounced Ad-nai.
When they want to refer to the pronunciation of the tetragrammaton as written,
they use the term "the explicit name" (shem hameforash).






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