Talk:Names of God in Judaism/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Do the contents of this article belong somewhere else?

I would recommend moving it to Yahweh. The articles are very similar at this point anyway.

But Yahweh deals with the name "Yahweh", so stuff about other Jewish names for God ("Adonai","Elohim","haShem") wouldn't seem to belong there...

One small point that likely belongs in a Talk page (but I'm too lazy to create one for a page that should disappear soon anyway) is that of the "YHVH" English rendering of the Tetragrammaton.

The Hebrew letter represented as "V" in this rendering is "vav" which, in Ancient Hebrew [if I understand correctly--I took Arabic, not Hebrew] was pronounced just like the ancient Roman "v" was pronounced--as a W. Is there any particular reason for rendering it "YHVH" instead of "YHWH"? Should we mention this point somewhere, or no?

Just added the hebrew lettering, if anyone wants to merge this page with another one please make sure to copy that bit over. Had to rummage around in unicode tables a bit to work it out. -BD

Yes, YHVH is a mixture of modern and ancient. It would be better as YHWH (modern English values) or JHVH (ancient Latin values). It is confused by the fact that in modern Hebrew the W is now pronounced as a V, so YHVH represents the modern Hebrew sounds, though not ancient Hebrew. Similarly, in tzevaot, that's a purely modern Hebrew transcription, and the ancient Latin Sebaoth is closer to the ancient Hebrew.

I changed the Hebrew word to display correctly on my browser (that is, right to left). Someone else has changed it back, with the comment that they also are changing it to read from right to left. Does this mean that different browsers display it in different directions? If so, we would be better to get rid of it, since it will just be misleading to anyone whose browser shows it the wrong way round. --Zundark, 2001 Sep 20

In Mozilla 0.9.4, which as far as I know is the most standards-compliant browser currently available, the string of characters encoded by יהוה gets automatically reversed and displayed from right to left. I assume that this is because Mozilla "knows" that Hebrew is read in this direction. The same thing happens in Internet Explorer 5.0, the only other browser I currently have access to. Whoever's seeing this text rendered left-to-right instead, what browser are you using? -BD

Internet Explorer 4.01 doesn't reverse them. Nor does Netscape 6.01. I think we should use a GIF (or PNG) if we really want to show the tetragrammaton, then we can be sure that everyone is seeing it correctly. --Zundark, 2001 Sep 20

On the other hand, the note about reading direction "(Note that Hebrew is written from right to left, rather than left to right as in English)" doesn't specify which direction the letters are actually being displayed in on the page, so the reader can take a moment to figure it out for himself. The "H" character is the one there are two instances of, once that's noticed it's pretty clear which way the word is being written. :) Personally I'd rather stick to the HTML standard than fool around with images for lettering, since standard compliance by browsers should increase with time, but I'm not terribly concerned one way or the other. - BD

You might find this tag useful: <BDO dir="rtl"></BDO> - Jan 1, 05

1 Sources
2 Elohei
3 Solving a Riddle written in Silver
4 Inquiry
5 Greek to me...
6 a concern
7 Improving the article
8 Title starts with "The"?

Sources

Much of this article is standard material and doesn't need more external documentation. But I would welcome sources for the Shaddai city theory and the possible original meaning of El. Both of these are new to me (or at least I don't remember running into them before) and should probably be cited as particular POV theories. jallan 21:53, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Of course these theories would be completely unacceptable from the POV of the Judaism - a monotheist Deity is not named after cities. Perhaps this article might benefit from the seperation of the actual list of names and sections on the interpretations, clearly distinguishing the classical Jewish view (e.g. the Tetragrammaton for the Merciful G'd versus Ellokim as the strict Judge) and the historical-documentary hypothesis one. With sources please. JFW | T@lk 22:34, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Surely not unacceptable to Judaism. See Genesis 31.13: ’ānōkî hā’ēl bêt-’ēl 'I am the God of Bethel'. Even without that, Judaism is hardly so monolithic.

But I agree that distinction between traditional explanations and modern theories is good.

As to the "classical Jewish view" of reasons for use of Tetragmmaton versus Elohim, why not add something? My own understanding, perhaps wrong, is that the POV of merciful versus strict judge stems almost entirely from Umberto Cassuto's The Documentary Hypothesis which was written in reaction to the documentary hypothesis and is mostly not a "classical Jewish view". It has been years since I read that book so I may just not remember Cassuto citing any traditional evidence for his claims. If there are such, they certainly ought to appear in the Wikipedia. Similarly Cassuto's theories should appear, attributed to Cassuto. I do remember finding the Cassuto's book most unconvincing. It seems to be cited today mainly by Christian fundamentalists.) jallan 18:18, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Elohei

The singular form of elohim is only used in "word-pair" form; where it indicates god of + the thing after it, thus elohei is only used and should be listed.

Elohei is plural. The singular would be Eloha, the pair version is undistinguishable from the regular version. Gadykozma 17:41, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Solving a Riddle written in Silver

Please see NYTimes Science Section, first. Sept 28th 2004, discovery of Priestly Blessing in Silver Amulets, with God's name in ancient script

Finally got a copy of that article and accompanied photos. Will try to make sense of it and add a comment. Thanks for the pointer. --Zappaz 16:28, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Inquiry

Shouldn't

YHWH-Ra-ah: The Lord my Shepherd (Psalms 23:1)

Be actually

YHWH-Ro'i: The Lord (is) my Shepherd (Psalms 23:1).

elpincha 22:14, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Greek to me...

The quotation from the Gospel of John in the "Hashem" section seems utterly out of place, given that John was written in Greek, and probably by a Gentile. My understanding is that the use of "logos" ("the word") is considered to be a Gnostic influence, not a reference to anything in Jewish thought.

Well spotted. I dealt with it. JFW | T@lk 18:59, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hebrew texts of John use the form hadavar. Should this be moved to the Gnosticism article instead of deleting? I have re-added the text for now until we fid a place for it. The reason I see this to be important is that the hebrew form is "hadavar", but most translate this as the Word. --Zappaz 00:23, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What Hebrew texts of John? John was written in Greek. I'll return the article to Jfdwolff's version, pending some confirmation of the dubious claim. Jayjg 01:12, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What I mean is that the Hewbrew version of the new testament, is says "bereshit hayah hadavar". --Zappaz 22:47, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

http://dvar-adonai.org/hnt/He_htm/John001-005.htm

That's a modern Christian translation of John into Hebrew, it has nothing to do with Judaism. I'm removing the unrelated text again. Jayjg 00:33, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can we find an article to place that text in? It is valuable info. --Zappaz 02:48, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why is it "valuable info" that a modern Christian translation of the Gospel of John into Hebrew uses the term "haDavar"? Jayjg 04:18, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because of the translation as "the Word". --Zappaz 00:56, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Zappaz, these are unrelated concepts. Hashem or Hadavar are not even used in the Talmud, they were introduced by the Medieval Rabbis. To claim that the name Hadavar has any bearing on the New Testament is minimally an anachronism and maximally a distortion. JFW | T@lk 01:09, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Zappaz, that's a translation choice a modern Christian translator made. I'm not sure why that specific choice by that specific translator is "important". Jayjg | Talk 04:17, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

a concern

Am I the only one who feels deeply uncomfortable that the article now includes the Hebrew tetragrammaton? This is a sacred word for Jews and should not be produced or reproduced so casually. Slrubenstein 19:04, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I understand the concern, but please note that there are thousands of reproductions of the tetragrammaton on the Internet, as well as on the online version of the Jewish encyclopedia. Out of respect to religious folk, we could add a disclaimer such as According to the Jewish tradition, if you print this page, the copy should be treated as any other sacred text since it contains the name of God.

Alternatively, maybe you can ask some Talmud scholars about the display on the Tetragrammaton on web pages and if there are any guidelines as how to do this.--Zappaz 19:47, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The question that occurs to me is how should "any ... sacred text" be treated? "With respect", of course, but are there any specifics that should be observed in this case? People in general are unlikely to have access to a geniza, so what should we be telling them to do, if anything? --Kay Dekker 04:15, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Improving the article

moved from User_talk:Gary_D)--Zappaz 00:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello Gary, Happy New Year!

I am putting my knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic to good work in expanding the The names of God in Judaism article. Could you take a look and give me some pointers on how to improve the article? I would like to submit it as a candidate for featured article. Your help will be appreciated. --Zappaz 20:54, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your knowledge of Hebrew? Thank god that Jossi speaks Hebrew, to back you up. And the Humanist is a treasure for that as well, isn't it. But to have it look scholarly, it is simply to amateurish. 140.247.62.121

There they go again the ex-premies with their conspiracy theories... And I thought that they will leave me alone now that the PR articles are stable. But no, they lurk and check my every step. Yikes!. Oh well ces't la vie, I guess. --Zappaz 16:32, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What is an "ex-premie"? Jayjg | (Talk) 22:29, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ouch! don't get me started... these are a small and very vociferous (to say the least, IMO!) group of ex-followers of Prem Rawat . I had quite a bit of problems with them when editing related articles. They accuse me of being paid to push Rawat's followers POVs in WP, and have also other weird conspiracy theories, and as you see above, they lurk around and check my edits.... strange people. --Zappaz 17:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)