Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

While I agree that the Bible is never pornographic, at the 
same time I suspect that early translators may have used 
euphemisms to cover up where the Bible used rather straight 
talk. In particular, I suspect that with Ezekial 16:33 NDH 
refers to ejected fluids that make a person unclean; semen 
for males, menstruation for women, while NDN is used only 
twice; once in 1 Chronicles 21:27 where it refers to the 
sheath of a sword, once for a part of a woman's body (the 
Latin word for sheath is "vagina"). Modern English 
euphemisms would render Ezekiel 16:33 as "they (men) sow 
their wild oats in all prostitutes and you (women) give your 
favors to all your lovers" instead of the more blunt words 
actually used. Verse 26 is part of the same picture, talking 
about a woman prostituting herself where her lovers have GDLY 
B%R where this is not an euphemism.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk 
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Translating Ezekiel 16:26
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 13:37:35 +0100

> 
> On Sat 30 Jul 2005 (13:10:21), christopher.heard AT pepperdine.edu wrote:
> > I am working through Ezekiel and I am not sure how to take the 
> > phrase                  [GDLY B&R] "those being great of flesh" 
> > in Ezekiel  16:26. It's clear enough from the context that the 
> > speaker is  referring to male genitalia, and the use of        
> > [B&R] in Ezekiel  23:20 confirms this. However, I am not sure 
> > whether to understand                  [GDLY B&R] as a reference 
> > simply to large genitalia  per se, or to _enlarged_ genitalia, 
> > that is, erections. NIV, NRSV,  and JPS all take it in the latter 
> > sense, and translate it as  "lustful." The LXX has a fairly 
> > literalistic translation,                           
> > [MEGALOSARKOS], "big-fleshed." Neither the  Hebrew word-pair nor 
> > the Greek word appear elsewhere in the Tanakh or  LXX, so I don't 
> > have any comparative data there to work with. Does  anyone know 
> > of any good evidence, e.g. uses of the Hebrew phrase or  Greek 
> > word in extra-biblical sources, or similar phrases in cognate  
> > languages, that would help me solidify this translation, or is it 
> > an  irreducible ambiguity?  Anybody know why NIV, NRSV, JPS read 
> > this as  they do?
> 
>   Dear Christopher,
> 
>   I seem to remember reading a work on Egyptology which I cannot now track
>   down, describing the religion of the priests of Amun-Re in the temples of
>   Karnak(?). The main activity of the priests at worship was to manually
>   masturbate before the statue of Amun, and then ritually eat the semen thus
>   produced. The statue of Amun was an "alpha male" with an enlarged sexual
>   organ sticking straight out in front. Ptolemy's(?) troops were so 
> disgusted
>   with this that they struck off the offending member, which was how Manetho
>   and later archaeologists discovered things. A few statues of Amun were 
> found
>   with everything still in place. Crudely carved hands and phalluses were 
> also
>   discovered as religious artefacts.
> 
>   All this activity was conducted in windowless chambers, in near darkness.
>   This could find a resonance in Ezekiel 8:12, "Have you seen what the 
> elders
>   of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of 
> his
>   own idol?". The women were "weeping for Tammuz" (verse 14), but "still
>   greater abominations than these" (verse 15) were being perpetrated by the
>   25 men "worshipping the sun" (Amun-Re?) in the inner court of the Temple
>   (verse 16).
> 
>   So yes, I think you are on the right lines. The Bible is never 
> pornographic;
>   conventional euphemisms are used to avoid offensive language. I'm sorry I
>   can't now recall the learned work wherein I read the above, or something
>   similar. Maybe someone else?
> 
>   Ben
> --
>   Revd Ben Crick, BA CF                                       ZFC Hf
>   <ben.crick AT NOSPAM.argonet.co.uk>
>   232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK)
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