Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Hi,

I don't know about Hebrew not containing any profanities. Let's  
consider Genesis 34:31

Ought anyone to treat our sister like a prostitute?

I think we tend to tone things down in our translations. This verse  
could quite easily have been translated 'Should anyone treat our  
sister like a whore?'. I think most ideas about Hebrew not containing  
any profanities should be more attributed to our refusal to translate  
them when they are plainly there than there not existing in the first  
place.

James Christian



Quoting "Sarah J. Blake" <sarah AT growingstrong.org>:

> LOL, George... When in formal classes I am quite an early riser. Last night
> I was cat-napping and rising--now awake for the day.
>
> I did some poking around on Google with the phrase "holy language" and the
> word Hebrew. Fascinating things to ponder... More questions... Is the
> concept of ""holy language" about the way that a language is used or about
> the way that it is not used? Some of the articles I read point to
> Maimonides' claim that Hebrew has no direct words for sexual acts or
> profanity. Other articles claim that Hebrew was (at some point or in some
> place--I did not read thoroughly) used for sacred texts while another
> language was used for legal documents. This does not imply that "holy
> language" is the language spoken by God but rather the language used to
> speak of God. However, we humans do like to think of God in our likeness; so
> in this mindset surely God speaks Hebrew. It is also a convenient
> empowerment mechanism for an oppressed people whose language might be
> endangered (my theory).
>
> My first reading about general topics regarding Hebrew language outside of
> grammar or works in Hebrew was a book called Hebrew in the Church: The
> Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue (Pinchas E. Lapide and Helmut
> Gollwitzer, English ed. published 1984 by Eerdmans). It discusses the
> attempts of Christian scholars to learn Hebrew following the Jewish-Gentile
> split, when Christian-Jewish relations were oftenforbidden. It also talks
> about the various attitudes toward Hebrew over time: it was considered
> everything from sacred to the devil's language. Fascinating reading. What I
> don't like about this book is that most of the Hebrew is transliterated,
> though this makes it possible for lay readers to deal with it without
> learning Hebrew script since the Hebrew meanings are defined.
>
> Enough for now...
>
> Sarah J. Blake
> Personal email: sjblake AT growingstrong.org
> http://www.growingstrong.org
>
>
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>
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