Biblical Languages

 I had my first introduction to biblical languages in high school.  I took Latin in high school and then continued on in college. "Latin?" you say.  "No part of the Bible was originally written in Latin."  Of course, you would be right. But the translators of the King James version of the Bible drew heavily from the Latin Vulgate to create their English translation.  That is obvious to anyone who has read the Vulgate.  The translators even preserved much of the word order of the Vulgate, that sounds awkward in English but pretty normal in Latin. Plus, about 50% of English words have Latin roots.

In college I took my first class of Greek. I continued studying the Greek New Testament after college on my own.  The New Testament was originally written in Greek because, at that time, Greek was the "lingua franca" of the Roman Empire. When I first started to read the New Testament in Greek, I was surprised how much further it was from English than the Latin was. Not only is it written with a different alphabet, but there are fewer cognates and the structure of the Koine Greek language is more complex than Latin, and much more complex than English (e.g. each Greek verb has around 200 different forms). 

I have only just recently started to study Hebrew. I find it even more removed from English than Greek is. There is the different alphabet, and the reading right to left thing. Hebrew use of verbs is very different as well.  It doesn't have as many conjugations as Greek, but there are the Binyanim, which is a funky verb thing that we don't have in English or Greek. (Funky, but actually very cool!)  There are also fewer English words with Hebrew roots. 

So why is this important?  When two languages are alike it is easier to understand what the original author meant and transmit it into the new language.  When the languages are more dissimilar, more is left to the translator to interpret what the original author meant and render it into the new language. I guess where I am going with this is that there was a lot of interpretation that went into the translation of the Old Testament.  If we were to translate it word for word, it would sound very strange to our English ears. Even then it wouldn't be a "pure" translation, because word meanings are not equivalent.  Each word in each language has a cloud of meanings.  A translator has to use textural clues to pick which meaning to bring over into the translation.  For example, I have been memorizing Psalm 46:10 in Hebrew. It is a very famous verse that starts out "Be still, and know that I am God."  I had always thought that "Be still" meant "stop and reverently listen".  But my Hebrew dictionary app suggests it is more like "relax".  That really changes the meaning of the verse for me.

And this is why I am trying to learn Hebrew.

  

The Tetragrammaton

 In the Old Testament, God's name is represented with four Hebrew letters

יהוה

This is called the tetragrammaton.  Jewish people do not pronounce this name, partially because of the third commandment not to take the name of the Lord in vain.  Another reason is that during the Roman persecutions of Christians and Jews, the Romans forbade Christians or Jews from saying the name.  

Ancient Hebrew was written with only consonants. It wasn't until about 400 CE that Jewish leaders began to be afraid that people would forget how to pronounce ancient Hebrew, so they started adding vowel markings to show how words were pronounced.  However, since no one had pronounced the name of God for centuries, no one was quite sure of the correct pronunciation. Therefore, instead of adding vowel markings, they left the tetragrammaton without markings and when they see this name, they say the word, "Adonai" which means "Lord".  The translators of the Bible into English have followed this tradition and when they came across יהוה in the Hebrew, they wrote "Lord" in English.  

People who are not Jewish want to try to pronounce the name, so they have come up with different transliterations.  Remember that Hebrew goes right to left.  The first letter " י " is called yod.  Scholars think it was originally pronounced like a Y, but later, particularly by German speaking Jews, it was pronounced as a J. The second and last letters "ה" is called hey.  It is pronounced with an H sound. The third letter "ו" is a vav which used to be pronounced as a W but the Germanic people, and modern Hebrews pronounce it as a V.  So the ancient form (scholars think) had the consonants, Yhwh, while the later Germanic Jews used the sounds Jhvh. It is easy to see how people started to use the names Yahweh or Jehovah.  

But where did the tetragrammaton come from?  It goes back to the story of Moses and the burning bush. When Moses asked what the Children of Israel should call him, he said. "I AM THAT I AM:...Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." (Exod 3: 14). In reality, Hebrew doesn't really have a word that means "I am" the same way English does.  The word in Hebrew has more of the sense of "come to pass" or "become".  It is the same word used in Genesis when God says, "Let there be light." Anyway, the word in this verse is the 1st person singular form of the verb הוה, spelled אהוה.  Does that look familiar?  It is the 1st person singular form, but they couldn't go around saying "I am" sent me, so they used the 3rd person singular form (he is), which is, you guessed it, יהוה.

So the question is, why did God decide that his chosen people should call him "he is?"  Maybe he was emphasizing that fact that he really exists, unlike the gods worshiped by the other nations. 

But that is not all.  There is a lovely video by a Jewish Christian where he talks about a bunch of other symbols that can be found in the tetragrammaton.  I don't know how scholarly it is, but I thought it was interesting.  Here is the link. He relates the tetragrammaton to the Hebrew words for "Breath" and "love" so that when John says, "God is Love" it is a word play.  I won't reproduce his argument here.  You will just have to watch the video.

One last note.  In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day-Saints, we use the name Elohim to refer to God the Father, and the name, Jehovah, to refer to the premortal Jesus. This distinction is not reflective of how the people of the Old Testament referred to God. They used Elohim as God's title, and Jehovah as God's specific name. The way that Latter-Day Saints associate the two names to the two separate beings is a modern clarification based on latter-day revelation.

The Name of God

I have been wanting to start a scripture study blog for some time.  I finally decided to start, and I thought, what better way is there to start my blog than is with a discussion about the name of God.  

In Genesis we are first introduced to the words the scriptures use for God.  There are two that are used most of all. (and remember Hebrew is read right to left)

אלהים= Elohim

Yahweh or Jehovah or Adoni=יהוה

So here are some interesting things about these two names. 

Elohim

The word elohim means gods, (plural) in Hebrew.  It is sometimes used to refer to gods, in general, at which time it is treated as a plural noun.  Any pronoun, adjectives or verb endings associated with it are plural in form.  When Elohim refers to the god of the Hebrews, the one true God, it is modified by singular pronouns, adjectives and verb forms.  For instance, in Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I (singular) am God (plural). 

So here are some of my ideas why the ancient Hebrews might have used a plural form of "god" to describe their God.  

1. The people in the Old Testament were surrounded by nations that believed in multiple gods.  They were, in many cases, animistic, meaning that they believed that many objects, creatures, or ideas, were governed by spirits.  So a person could choose if they wanted to pray to a tree god, a wind god, etc.  Having the name of their god be plural might be a way of saying, "Our one God is who we worship in place of all your gods,"  or Elohim=all the other gods, for us.  

2. The early Hebrews worshiped a female god Asherah.  She was represented, at various times, as being the consort of Yahweh.  If they saw Yahweh and Asherah as a couple, they may have thought of them collectively as Elohim.  Later, the worship of Asherah became associated with Baal, and was discouraged by the Jewish religious leaders. Maybe the reference to God as plural was a vestage of the earlier idea that God and his wife were one, just as they commanded Adam and Eve to be one.

3. It might be that Elohim, meaning the one true God, was just a grammatical anomaly, a singular word with a plural form, just like the word "pants" in English.  Maybe there is no more to it than that. 

What significance do these theories of the origin of the name Elohim have for me as a Latter-Day Saint?  If idea #1 is correct, maybe it is a reminder to me and all Christians of the the first of the 10 commandments, that we should have no other god than God. He should be our only focus, and we should disregard other "gods" that vie for our attention.

If #2 is correct, it is an intriguing look into the idea of a Mother-in-Heaven.  If the term really does refer to a divine couple, then Mother in Heaven has had a lot more to do with the history of mankind than we have ever imagined. She was involved, with her husband, from the very creation.  I have always mourned that we have no real role model of what a divine feminine does, but maybe we have had one, all along.

If #3 is correct, it is a rueful reminder not to see more than what is really there.

I don't really have a strong conviction about #1 or #2.  I am pretty sure #3 is not correct.  It seems that God is pretty much in charge of what happens on earth, and I think it likely he directed what his people should call him for a reason.  Maybe it is not a reason we have even mentioned here, but I think it is interesting to ponder the possibilities.

This blog post is getting long, so I will talk about יהוה in my next blog post.