Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

Karl,

You seem to have an idiosyncratic, or at least non-standard,  
definition of what a "pun" is. According to my English dictionary  
nearest to hand, a pun is "a joke exploiting the different possible  
meanings of a word or the fact that there are words that sound alike  
but have different meanings." An example given is "the pigs were a  
squeal," which is a pun because in English "a squeal" can refer both  
to a sound pigs make and to a delightful experience.

Thus when the narrator of Genesis uses אדם )DM in Gen 25,  
exploiting the different possible senses of the word as the color  
red, the name for a stew, a nickname for Esau, and the name of the  
people/nation of Edom, that certainly qualifies as "punning" in the  
sense defined above (which is not "what I think of," but what my  
dictionary reports as the commonly accepted usage).

Chris

On Sep 16, 2005, at 9:26 AM, Karl Randolph wrote:

> 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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--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Seaver Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
Professional Web Page: http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
Internet Resource Index: http://www.iTanakh.org
Personal Web Page: http://www.heardworld.com