So many discussions like this are worded like, “What did Moses mean when he said, X”? without considering that we have next-to-no reliable information about what Moses said, whether he actually existed, or whatever. If such ancient text is a conglomeration of many authors and handmedown memories interpreted by language translations and distorted by time, copying and piousity, it is like looking at a JPG image blowup and seeing aliens in the shadows of the artifacts (which some people have been known to do).
So, while it is intellectually stimulating to speculate about what YHWH means in a biblical sense, it may be no more than mental masturbation to ascribe any serious, religious meaning to an interpretation if the source and veracity is so uncertain.
Hmm. That doesn’t jibe with the legend I was taught - but no doubt there are many legends, and no correct answers. I was taught that the name of god was written in the Holy of Holies - if it was a matter of pronunciation, and not spelling, why bother, and why make this so well protected? This was a story from our Cantor, who said his father had memorized the Talmud :dubious: - but we were a Conservative shul, so what do we know?
OneCentStamp Looking at it now, I was unnecessarilly harsh. Without derailing the thread, this is due to offline events and not anything you posted. I apologize both for my words and for any offense or injury they caused.
Captain Amazing Is correct. The male descendants of Aaron who met certain requirements (no physical blemish, etc) were all Kohanim. But, one among them was the High Priest. He, and he alone, could enter the Holy Of Holies and speak the Name.
Voyager I’m only Jew Lite (Now With Almonds!). Temple Olam Tikvah was Conservative/Conservadox. For an Industrial Strength Jew, you need Zev Steinhart. But remember that much of Jewish folklore, golems and Lilith for example, is not mentioned in the Torah. It’s entirely possible that we both heard ancient and contradictory legends started a thousand years ago.
"What does God mean when he says his name is Yahweh?"
I don’t understand why you’re asking us–why don’t you ask him (or Him)? And let us know when you find out.
The usual English agentive suffix is -er, so the word should be “Beer.”
Similarly in Islam with respect to the written name of Allah. (The difference being in pronunciation, since you can pronounce “Allah” out loud, people do so all the time. A lot. Perhaps that goes for Arabic-speaking Jews too, they say “Allah” in everyday speech.) Since in Islam everything starts with the basmalah containing Allah’s name, all the fundraising letters and other correspondence from Islamic societies that get sent to Muslims on mailing lists have the name at the top, and the really pious Muslims tear out the basmalah and save them in a drawer before throwing the rest of the document away. I always wondered how the ultra-pious deal with this in Ramallah, since “Allah” is part of the name.
Iran has an approach to Islamic law that sometimes is more finicky than elsewhere. So they do something similar to what DocCathode related, a special abbreviation that somehow says it without it counting. In Iran, they just write the first letter alif followed by three dots to stand for the missing letters.
But is Allah considered the True Name of G-d? Doesn’t the declaration of faith use the same word to refer to other generic gods? 'There is no god but G-d. Muhammed (pbuh) is His prophet"?
I’m stunned. IIRC If in a stack of books, Al Quran must be on top. It may not touch the ground. Many of the laws and traditions concerning sacred text are the same as in Judaism. Jewish law forbids tearing sacred text.
It’s things like this that convince there is no real reason we can’t live in peace.
Others have posted about the origin, authorship, linguistics or historical (or scientific) reality. I’d like to note that, while those viewpoints are certainly reasonable, there’s another perspective. We do have a text that (regardless of who wrote it or when, or who edited it or when) is in a final form. We can thus ask questions within that text, in much the same way that we can questions about Hamlet within the text, without regard for Shakespeare’s historical sources, without regard for reality (“It’s fiction” isn’t much of an answer), etc.
From that persepctive, the use of God’s personal name in the text is a sign of intimacy, in the same way that God calls Moses by name (twice.) in contrast, Pharaoh is not identified by name, but by title. God is often referred to in the biblical text by “titles” – the E-name, for instance, is more a title or a position than a name, as in English, the very word “God” is a title (he’s the Big God, there are little gods like those of ancient mythologies.) Thus, when God allows Moses to address Him by Name, readers of the text would have understand this (as a literary device) to imply an intense intimacy.
No. The generic word for deity is ilah. Allah is usually explained as a contraction of al- ‘the’ and ilah’ god’.
La ilah[sup]a[/sup] illa Allah[sup]u[/sup]
I’m stunned. IIRC If in a stack of books, Al Quran must be on top. It may not touch the ground. Many of the laws and traditions concerning sacred text are the same as in Judaism. Jewish law forbids tearing sacred text.
It’s things like this that convince there is no real reason we can’t live in peace.
[/QUOTE]
Well said! Right on.
As others have pointed out, the Tetragrammaton is derived from the verb “to be.” It contains (to some extent) the past, present and future forms of that verb. Ultimately, I believe that the main point of that particular name is the fact that He exists.
While the name was only used by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) on Yom Kippur in the Temple in Jerusalem, it was heard by others in the Temple during the course of service (Mishna Yoma 3:9) and, as a result, you cannot say that only the Kohen Gadol knew the pronounciation of the Name.
When I puchased a Quran in Abu Dhabi some years ago, I had to wait a minute after paying for it while the seller said a prayer aloud over the book. He also lifted it up a few times. The prayer was something along the lines of praying that I would accept what was in it and convert. I didn’t, but the instance showed that the seller, for one, had a very high reverence for it.
Johanna’s memory regarding Allah as the portmanteauing of Al Ilah corresponds with mine.
Regarding Yahweh, we’ve sort of scuttled past the fact that it’s modern Bible scholars’ educated opinion on how YHWH was supposed to be pronounced, a reasonable but not proven fleshing out of the consonantal Hebrew. If any Kohanim have preserved the traditional Temple pronunciation, I am not aware of it.
With reference to Monty’s last point, I was given to understand, when I ran a bookstore which offered for sale, among other things, the Quran, that it was inappropriate to sell the Quran for any price whatsoever. It was to be a free gift, or not transferred at all. However, it was quite acceptable to charge for the paper, covers, binding, etc., the net effect being that it was sold as a book – but both the polite vendor (me) and the purchaser were aware that the custom was honored.
When I was recently in Bahrain, I was told that it was perfectly OK to buy a Quran that had English translation, for instance. Only a Quran that was purely and only in Arabic would be “sacred” and I, as an infidel, should not touch such a book.
There are Muslim groups who demand that Al Quran not be translated as doing so would lose the holy meaning of the words.
I’m not surprised you were told not to touch an Arabic copy. I wouldn’t let a gentile touch a torah unless I was sure they were ritually clean (mostly clean anyway). There all kinds of things that could cause problems that a gentile might not be aware of. I’m sure it’s the same with Islam. As Monty said there is also the problem of non-believers defiling or showing disrespect to holy texts, intentionally or otherwise.
To my knowledge, there is no one in Judaism that holds the position that it is forbidden to translate the Torah.
There is an obligation upon each Jew to read the Shema three times a day. The Shema consists of three chapters of the Pentatuch. The Mishna (Sotah 7:1) clearly states that the Shema can be recited in any language that one understands. Obviously, if it were forbidden to translate the Torah, one would not be able to read the Shema in another language.
