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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Translation theory and the tetragrammaton - YHWH
  • Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:14:03 +0200

Dear James,

I shock myself by agreeing with Isaac here. Proper names (personal and places as well) are better left untranslated, although obviously those who have to read the text in translation should be told ther meaning, since the text very often puns, drashes or otherwise makes use of the meanings of names, in ways that would be missed by someone who was unaware of those meanings.

In the case of the Tetragrammaton, there have been so many thories about its origin and "real" meaning, that only an extremely self-confident person would really think that he finally has the true answer. Using an assumed meaning in stead of the Name, would lead an uninformed reader to the false conclusion that this is its real, accepted meaning. If you are the leader of a religious sect who claims that God revealed the meaning of His name to you, you can tell your followers whatever you want. But if you are participating in scholarly discourse, a little modesty would be appreciated.

Besides all that, there is a 2500 year tradition to deal with. At some time during the early Second Temple period, many Jews decided that God's true name was two sacred to vocalize, and began using "Adonai" ("My Lord") instead. In fact, Mishnaic tradition claims that the Name was only uttered by the high preist once a year, on Yom Kippur. This was accepeted by the translators of the Septuagint, who used "Kurios", and thus made its way into mainstream Christianity as well. Jews have also traditionally avoided writing the full four letters, except in ritual texts, and many printed Bibles and prayer books use such abbreviations as YY. Today, many observant Jews even avoid saying "Adonai" except when actually praying or reading the Bible as part of the liturgy, and use "Hashem" ("the Name") instead.

I'm not sure when it became common to use "YHWH", "Yahweh" and the like in academic writing, but my feeling is that it began as a sort of reaction or deliberate challenge to religiously-based scholarship's insistance on "Lord". I do understand the scholarly advantage to "reading it like it's written", but those who do (myself included, sometimes) shout realize that quite a few people are actually offended, or at least uncomfortable, when they hear the tetragrammaton vocalized or see it spelled out.

Yigal Levin


----- Original Message ----- From: "Isaac Fried" <if AT math.bu.edu>
To: "biblical hebrew" <jcr.bhebrew AT gmail.com>
Cc: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Translation theory and the tetragrammaton - YHWH


James,

Religious beliefs apart, reading ancient names grammatically could be
a grave mistake. It is unrealistic that YICXAQ is He-will-laugh and YA
(AKOB is He-will-follow-in-the-footsteps. I also think that the ABI-
of ABI-MELEK is not the-father-of. It is certainly incongruous in the
girl names ABI-GAYIL [see 1 Samuel 25:3], and ABI-$AG [see 1 Kings
1:3]. Similarly, the BAT- in BAT-$EB(A [see 2 Samuel 11:3] and BAT-$U
(A [see 1 chronicles 3:5] need not be the-daughter-of. In fact, the
latter is the daughter of Ammiel.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Oct 16, 2007, at 6:15 AM, biblical hebrew wrote:

They promote the interpretation that Yhwh is a third
person imperfect causative of the root HWH with literal meaning 'he
causes
to become' and there are good reasons to support this theory.

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