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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: "Sarah J. Blake" <sarah AT growingstrong.org>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>, George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew as a holy language
  • Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 13:19:34 +0100

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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