Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Jack:

Either your definition of a pun is different than mine, or the 
examples you give below are not puns.

When I think of puns, I think of examples like when we as 
kids played name the state capitals game: after a few months 
we all could name the state, then immediately give the capital, 
so to keep interest we started referring to "Home of the gods" 
(Olympia, Washington), "Famous missionary" (St. Paul, 
Minnesota) and among those were puns "Metropolis 
underneath automobiles" (Cars On City (Carson City), Nevada) 
and "Completely rabbit" (All Bunny (Albany), New York). Merely 
calling a person's descendants and/or place after his nickname 
does not fit my understanding of "pun", certainly not in English 
nor in Biblical Hebrew.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: tladatsi AT charter.net
> 
> Not the same lexeme?
> 
> The OT is quite clear that the nation of ?DM is supposed to
> be named after Esau s nickname ?DM (Gen 36:1 and 36:8).
> For this to be true, the two words would have to be the
> exact same lexeme.  Esau s nickname was given to him
> because he asked his brother for a bowl of ?DM (Gen 25:30).
> There seems no way to me for someone to be named after a
> bowl of red stew and that name not being the same lexeme as
> the red stew. Three of these words are unquestionable the
> same lexeme, each being a link in a chain of thing being
> named after each other, all of which are red. The only
> questionable word is ?DMNY which is universally translated
> in ancient times and modern as red, reddish, or ruddy
> (e.g., LXX purrakhv, Vulg. rufus).   The core concept of
> redness and the clear link to a common grammatical root
> makes a very strong case for these four words being the
> same lexeme.  (Some might argue that the name of the nation
> Edom really is derived from the color of the countryside.
> Most of the Trans-Jordanian country is the color of the
> infield of baseball field, the red color of brick. It is an
> iron oxide thing.  However that is neither here nor there).
> 
> Not a pun?
> 
> Esau is born ?DMNY and in turn give birth to a nation
> called ?DM.   Esau asked Jacob / Israel for ?DM and
> received it in exchange for his birthright.  Thus his
> descendants received from him the country called ?DM
> (instead of the land of Canaan which Israel received)
> because Esau asked for ?DM from Israel  Of course, the
> older nation of Edom was conquered by the younger nation of
> Israel as the older brother Esau / Edom lost his birthright
> to the younger brother Jacob / Israel.
> 
> Puns with political punch proliferate profusely.
> 
> These are not the only puns in Ex. 25, although the only
> one which is based on a single lexeme.  Esau is also born
> S?R, hairy.  His descendents lived in the land of S?YR.
> These are clearly not the same lexeme but a phonetically
> based pun.
> 
> 
> Jack Tladatsi

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