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  • From: dana densmore <danadensmore AT hotmail.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Linguistic, historical, cultural origins of yahweh
  • Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:42:22 +0000


Dear Guy,You wrote:> I recall a popular interpretative explanation given to
me in early school years whereby it did stand for "was, is, will be" (Haya,
Hoveh, Yihyeh), but it has always sounded to me as a much later, if not even
recent attempts at endowing what might have been a mere name of location and
its associated deity a rather philosophical or theological "actual
meaning".>Indeed, it does seem from the fact that the explanation presents
itself in the grammatical structure of "past", "present", and "future" that
it is modern---European or modern Israeli---rather than Biblical. And it
seems to convey either ignorance of Biblical Hebrew or disregard of the
likelihoods of its linguistic patterns. Or perhaps we should just call it
midrashic imagination indulging in eisegesis.By the way, I gather that BDB
believes that the masculine singular participle "hoveh" does not occur in the
Hebrew Bible (they do show a feminine singular participle). If this is true
(and perhaps those of you on this list who know the Hebrew text well can
confirm or refute) it suggests that the "popular interpretive explanation" is
even less likely.Dana DensmoreUniversity of Wales Lampeter



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