Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

 Dear Uri,

Your memory is correct. There is an Egyptian hymn to Amun-Ra "whose 
name is hidden from all his creatures." If you read the article 
"Nameless gods" in Volume IX of James Hasting's  "Encyclopedia of 
Religion and Ethics" (1917) you can see how widespread nameless gods 
were all over the ancient world, including Amun-Ra. There were links 
between Egypt and Israel, and Egyptian views may absolutely have 
contributed to the superstitious view of YHWH. A. Marmorstein "The 
Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God" (1927) is also worth reading. Among 
other things, Marmorstein wrote: "Greek philosophy, Christian apology 
and Gnostic lore concur in the idea of God's namelessness. That God 
had no name was taught by Aristotele, Seneca, Maxim of Tyre, Celsus, 
and Hermes Trismegistus" (p. 77). We may also mention Philo, who was 
heavily influenced by Platonism, where namelessness was very 
important. In addition to this, magical arts evidently played an 
important role. At the University Library in Oslo there are lots of 
magical papyrii with IAW  written in many different combinations, and 
similar papyrii are found in numerous other libraries. One reason for 
not pronouncing the name of God could have been to prevent its use in 
magical arts.

It is also interesting that the rabbis never  used Leviticus 24:16 as 
a proof that the name should not be pronounced ) G. F. Moore "Judaism 
in the first Three Centuries of of the Christian Era: The Age of the 
Tannaim Judaism". (1955)  vol 1, p 428. Neither did they use Exodus 
20:7 (L. Finkelstein "New Light on the Prophets 1969, p. 428.) 
Curiously enough, the passage they did use to prove 
non-pronunciation, is that passage that most clearly says that the 
name should never cease to be pronounced, namely, Exodus 3:15. The 
reasonings of the rabbis are found in M. M. Kasher "The Encyclopedia 
of Biblical Interpretation".(1967)  vol II, p. 109.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




>   Dear Rolf,
>
>   Years ago I read in a popular Egyptian enyclopedia that the name 
> of one their chief gods - was it Amun? - is a held in such high 
> respect that it is not pronounced.
>
>    Some time  later I could not find this reference again when I 
> tried to relocate it in the same source book. I do not remember if 
> the source was a Greek Hellenistic writer or not.
>
>   Thus I found it very interesting that you stated:
>
>  "Because of superstition, probably based on the views of Plato, the
> tetragram was not pronounced by some groups, but is was  pronounced
> by others  B.C.E. "
>
>   Is it possible that the custom of not pronouncing the holy name 
> was an imitation of Egtptian practice?
>
>   From the way YHWH is used in pre-exilic Hebrew inscriptional 
> material it would seem that it was freely pronounced. But this is 
> only an impression. Similarly it can be argued that since parts of 
> this DN were used in many BCE theophoric personal names, such parts 
> were freely pronounced.
>
>   Regards,
>
>   Uri
>
>   Uri Hurwitz                                 Great Neck, NY