*lizfried AT umich.edu wrote:*HH: Protestants, too, understand God's jealousness in a positive way. Here are a few Protestant translations of the same verse:
**
"So now, accordingly, qn' (qana')is translated as
"zealous" when the subject is God (e.g. Exod 20:5)and as "jealous" when a
human is the subject (e.g., Gen. 26:14). Yet, I would maintain that it is
YHWH's very jealousy that has maintained the Jews over 3000 years of
persecutions, nothing else. Jews do not worship other gods, for that simple
reason, that YHWH is a jealous god. Nevertheless, Christians tend to
translate the term as "zealous" in Exod. 20:5 because jealousy is seen as a
negative emotion. It seems to me that the god that Christians see in the OT
tends to be a Platonic idealization of YHWH, which is fine, but it is
different from the god that Jews see when they read the Hebrew Bible."
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I do not know about other Christians, but we Catholics do not see jelousy in
a negative connotation, we believe that the word is highly misunderstood
though. You have really got me thinking about what the true image of YHWH
ought to be in my mind though, never thought about my philosophical
upbringing as changing what the OT is truly saying.
I know that you did not say all Christians translate the term as zealous.
Anyway, I figured it would aid the discussion to see a Christian
translation:
"you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your
God, am a *jealous* God, inflicting punishment for their fathers' wickedness
on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth
generation" (NAB). - Exodus 20:5
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