Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>]

Dear List,

I am thinking that this thread should change the subject heading to:
Understanding Exodus 20:7.

The reason for the change is that the central tenet amongst all the responses 
is
how to understand the 3rd Commandment,
    "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD 
will
not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain"(cf also Deut 5:11; RSV).

It also appears that God told the Israelites not to make a covenant with the
nations of Canaan including their behavior and religious worship (Exod 
34:11ff;
Lev 18:1-22:33; et al). Thus, it seems that whole issue behind the 
prohibitions
of the 3rd Commandment and other passages was that the nation of Israel was to
be totally different, unique, or separated from the abominable practices and 
set
apart to God. This involved the total person in what he thought, said and did.

How was the 3rd Commandment interpreted not only in Biblical Hebrew period, 
but
after the exile, through the 2nd Temple period, and post-Temple until today?

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] adonai "my Lord" or "the Lord"


> James, I fail to see why you think that no. i is "completely absurd". The
> fact is, that the issue has not been debated in either Judaism or
> Christianity (with the possible exception of esoteric groups of scholars
> such as those on this list) for the past 2000 years. Jews have been reading
> YHWH and saying "Adonai" for at least that long, and at least the more
> educated Christian clergy have also been aware of the fact that "Kurios",
> "Dominus", "Lord" and the like are translations of an "original" name for
> the same amount of time. And they have all been aware of the meaning of the
> theophoric element in names like Joshua, Jonathan, Elijah, Jeremiah and so
> on. And the fact is, that it's a non-issue in both traditions. God is God,
> He has a "Name" that is ineffable, and that's it. It's only since modern
> scholarship has: a. shown that in Iron Age inscriptions the name of YHWH was
> invoked regularly in "secular" contexts; and b. began looking for a
> "detached" way to refer to the God of Israel as just one more Ancient Near
> Eastern deity with a name that can be used, that the pronunciation and use
> of YHWH began to be an issue.
>
> Yigal Levin
>
>
>
>
>
> James wrote:
>
> Again, we see no mention of any argument about enunciation of the name. It
> is a non-issue. This seems to leave us with only a few possibilities worth
> considering:
>
> i) the name hadn't been used for so long that it was considered to be a
> non-issue by everybody.
> ii) the issue hadn't yet been raised.
> iii) it was an issue but the literature has been purged of every trace of
> it.
>
> Possibility iii) is so far fetched that none of us have even considered it.
> Issue ii) is difficult to take on board because (as you rightly state) there
> doesn't seem to be any explicit mention of it in the post NT Christian
> literature. Possibility i) seems completely absurd because the central
> prophet of Christianity, Jesus, was constantly engaged in conflicts about
> the traditions of men made the word of God invalid.
>
>
> James Christian
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>
>
> -- 
> Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.3/696 - Release Date: 02/21/2007
3:19 PM
>
>