Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Yes, Norman, euphemism is regularly employed in biblical literature. The texts you cite are good examples. Yes, Ezekiel has some very confronting and even offensive passages in which euphemisms are used. Usually euphemisms are used for modesty's sake, but if that was Ezekiel's motive, it was completely undone by the nature of his content.

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)

On 08/01/2013, at 4:24 AM, "Norman Cohn" <normanncohn AT yahoo.com.br> wrote:

Hi, folks!

 

I've just recently joined the group and am sure I'll learn a lot from you all. I hope this post isn't off-topic or simply boring!  I finished reading a book called "The Uncensored Bible", written by Steven Mckenzie, John Kaltner and Joel Kirlpatrick, and it seems the first two authors are respected biblical scholars. It's an interesting book which purports to assess the merits of controversial scholarly interpretations of a few difficult passages in the Hebrew Bible. Not surprisingly, most of the discussion in the book revolves around issues of translation.  

 

Though the book is - IMHO - written in a very annoying style, with the authors going out of their ways to sound 'cool' and 'funny', some of the issues raised by them seemed to me to be of some interest. 

 

In one of the chapters, the authors argue, for instance, that many times the Bible uses the term "basar" (flesh) in order to euphemistically refer to the male intimate parts (and here am I adopting another euphemism!), citing as examples the following passages: Ezekiel 44:7, 9; Exodus 28:42; 20; Leviticus 15:2–3; Ezekiel 16:26; Ezekiel 23:20.

 

The last two passages from Ezekiel are especially disturbing because they seem to imply a very crude - perhaps even gross, to modern sensitivies - kind of racial stereotyping. This made me think about the role of euphemism as a language device in the Hebrew Bible as a whole and the way racial stereotyping may manifest itself through the biblical language.

I'd love to know what do you think about this. Do you think euphemism plays an important role in the Hebrew Bible as a literary device? Do you think it's possible to map the ancient Israelites' mindset and sensitivities through the analysis of euphemistic language/speech? Can you think of passages where the biblical authors employs language or even tropoi which may imply some kind of racial stereotyping?  Sorry for the long post and thanks for having me in the group!

 

Best Regards,

Norman Cohn

São Paulo - Brazil  

 

  

  

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