khan
Posts: 1554
Joined: May 2007
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| Quote (CeilingCat @ Mar. 09 2008,00:30) | In the Uncommon Descent 'Speaking of T-Shirts' thread: | Quote | 4 Larry Fafarman 03/08/2008 11:08 am
Some of the holiest things don’t even have names. In Judaism, god has no name. In the Koran, Jerusalem has no name.
5 Frost122585 03/08/2008 11:54 am
In Judaism God has a name’ “Yahweh” - Or Jahova- but you aren’t supposed to ever say it. I dont know where you got the idea that God has no name in Judaism from.
6 PannenbergOmega 03/08/2008 12:23 pm
Does not the Lord God say to Moses that He is I Am?
7 DaveScot 03/08/2008 2:00 pm
re; Yahweh
According to a long history of religion I read many years ago that’s YHWH and is not to be pronounced. The 4-letter ancient Hebrew name was translated into english in one variation as JHVH which should be more familiar to American audiences as JeHoVaH.
8 Apollos 03/08/2008 2:04 pm
I believe that Jerusalem (Al-Quds) is nameless in the Qu’ran because it’s not referenced anywhere in the Qu’ran.
9 Apollos 03/08/2008 2:27 pm
Both Yahweh and Jehovah are transliterations (YHWH JHVH) of the literal, actual, and unpronounceable (in more ways than one) name of God, comprised of the Hebrew letters: Yod, Heh, Vav, and Heh. The construction is known as the Tetragrammaton (word of four letters).
10 StephenB 03/08/2008 2:44 pm
In the Old Testament, God deals with primitive people through primitive means, so there is certain relational distance. Bad behavior must be addressed before the subject of intentions and motives can be introduced. That means that there is a lot of violence and crude behavior on both sides. The relationship gradually changes from master/slave to father/God as the crude behavior becomes somewhat more civilized. At that level, a covenant is possible, but intimacy is still a problem.
In the New Testament, the relationship between God and man gradually becomes more intimate, first to the level of friendship, and finally to the level of mutual, self sacrificial love. Concurrently, man begins to consider not only his behavior but the intentions and motives in back of that behavior. What a person does is important, but why he does it is infinitely more important. As that relationship develops, and God becomes known (only analogically of course) man can call on the heavenly father/God in much the same way he would call on an earthly father. In Islam, there is no room for this kind of intimacy because the relationship never advances beyond that of a slave to his master. Accordingly, the slave’s motives never advance beyond obeisance, servility, and duty.
11 jstanley01 03/08/2008 3:27 pm
DaveScot:
According to a long history of religion I read many years ago that’s YHWH and is not to be pronounced.
Judaism has taught, perhaps as far back as the 3rd century B.C., that it’s unlawful to utter the tetragrammaton. The tradition falls short of being Biblical, however, seeing as how Ruth 2:4 says:
And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord [Hebrew, YHWH] be with you. And they answered him, The Lord [Hebrew, YHWH] bless thee.
12 Lutepisc 03/08/2008 3:48 pm
I hope some Hebrew scholar can come along and correct/add to what I recall about the word YHWH. I took only one year of Hebrew, and made B’s, so I’m pretty much at the “lay” level of expertise here.
I’m recalling that the etiology of the tetragrammaton has its roots in the Hebrew verb “to be,” which IIRC is “yiyeh” (the consonants for that would be YHYH). (Sorry I have to transliterate, as I don’t know how to get Hebrew into the blog here.)
When Moses encounters the burning bush in Exodus, he asks, “Whom shall I say sent me (to lead the Israelites out of Egypt)?” Out of the bush comes the reply, “I am the one who is. Tell them ‘I am’ has sent you.”
“You are to say to the children of Israel, YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent me to you.”
The tetragrammaton was sacred, since names were thought to embody the essence of the one named. It was not to be pronounced. Traditionally, “Ha Shem” is used as a substitute, which means simply “The Name.”
Instead, another name was customarily pronounced there (there are many names for the one God in the Hebrew Bible). It may have been “Adonai” or “Elohim,” I don’t remember (but I’m guessing some other UD reader will know). As a reminder to readers of the Biblical text to say “Adonai” rather than “Yahweh” in those places where the tetragrammaton was written, the vowel markings from the substitute name were used wherever the tetragrammaton appeared in the text.
If you don’t know this history but you do know the Hebrew vowels and consonants, you will read the resulting “word” as “Jehovah.” (JeHoVaH.) But there actually is no such word as “Jehovah.” It’s a conflation of the tetragrammaton and the substitute name for God.
As a sideline (this seems to be as good a place as any to say this), I think the name spoken to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus is a really astute response to Dawkins’ question, “Who designed the designer?” If the designer is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (which clearly isn’t necessary for ID but dovetails nicely with ID), then no one designed the designer. The designer is “the One Who Is”…whose essence is His existence. Who is, as Paul Tillich puts it, “the ground of being.”
13 Gods iPod 03/08/2008 3:57 pm
I study Hebrew. Apollos is correct.
14 jstanley01 03/08/2008 4:14 pm
StephenB:
In the New Testament, the relationship between God and man gradually becomes more intimate…
At the risk of interjecting more theological observations here than the guidelines are wont to welcome: Rather abruptly, actually, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), the relationship of believers to the Father became one of sons (Greek, huios, used equally of sons and daughters):
Galatians 4:4-7
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons [Greek, huiothesia, literally “placement as sons”].
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Not a bad deal, actually…
15 Lutepisc 03/08/2008 4:20 pm
God’s iPod, I’m not sure what you mean. JHVH and YHWH are simply two different English transliterations of the tetragrammaton, which consists only of consonants. The vowels come from somewhere else.
16 Apollos 03/08/2008 4:30 pm
That’s a great point about the Ruth reference, jstanley.
Some have suggested that the change in practice came about as a result of the Babylonian captivity, where many Hebrew words obtained their Aramaic meaning. Hence, where the Law stated that it was a sin to blashpeme the name of God, the Aramaic equivalent imposed the meaning pronounce the name of God. It’s an interesting theory. Yahweh - Wikipedia. (See Historical Overview.)
However I searched all throughout the Old Testament and found verbal references to YHWH, even in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (post Babylonian captivity). So this would be something that happened probably between 430 BC and around 270 BC, as extant copies of the Septuagint substitute kurios (Gr.) among other words. This may have been a result of the imposition of Greek law upon the known world, circa 332 BC. Also, New Testament books largely quote from the Septuagint, making use of the kurios locution.
17 StephenB 03/08/2008 4:35 pm jstanley01: I think your comments are appropriate for the thread. The issue of God’s approachability developed naturally from Dave’s worship theme, which was quite funny by the way.
18 jstanley01 03/08/2008 5:12 pm
Apollos:
Actually, I swiped the Ruth reference from the Wikipedia article Names of God in Judaism. But I suspected what your research has borne out — that its not the only verbal reference ins Scripture for YHWH.
Discombobulating ancient traditions from the original Biblical practices is often a daunting task. Take the phylacteries of Matthew 23:5, that orthodox Jews wear to this day; apparently in a literal obedience to Proverbs 3:3 et. al., which were commands that I believe were originally meant to be taken figuratively. |
All science so far. |
Even if he does say Jehovah
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZNeq2Utm0nU
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"It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall
That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad
Frequency is just the plural of wavelength...
-JoeG
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