Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

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).