BAMBINO-9
BAMBINO no. 9
BRIT-AM BIBLICAL ISRAEL NEWS ONLINE
Contents:
1. Question on The Name of God and Jeremiah 44:26
2. Ben Zentgraf: In Support
3. Use of the Names: Some Sources
4. The Brit-Am Position concerning use of the names.
5. Some Secular but still useful sources

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1. Question on The Name of God and Jeremiah 44:26
From: Brian Patmore <manco_yupanqui@bigpond.com>
Re: Brit-Am Now no. 1088
#2(b) Michelle: Judah Forbidden?

Shalom Yair and all,
  
May I add a little grain of truth from the above.
 
Firstly Our Father in Heaven is TRUTH completely and utterly.
 
When reading scripture we must take this into consideration and realize, to my way of thinking, that the words he expresses will be absolutely accurate, different to us, and will take to original and true meanings of each word.
 
We change with the times but The God of Abraham and Moses is constant, unchangeable and as such must be taken in the one and true original sense at all times.
 
In the above quotation from Jeremiah 44:26-26 the governing statement is "....that my name shall no more be named in
the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, [The Lord] GOD liveth."
 
Firstly, the statement must be as from "any man of Judah"
 
Secondly, that man must be in the land of Egypt for this instruction to apply.
 
Thirdly, a son of Jacob must not deny that "[The Lord] liveth."
 
Now, that instruction from The lord God of Israel cannot apply to a son of Judah who is not living in the land of Egypt, as far as I can see.
 
Can we please have an opinion in this regard Yair, as many of us must carry the blood of Judah, as well as his brothers, without knowing it and would be at pains to abide by the request/instruction of the Lord God ?
 
 Was the instruction given for that period of time of residence in Egypt specifically from your readings and in relation to the relevant context ?
 
Your thoughts are most welcome.
 
Brian
Brisbane Australia

Brit-Am Reply: The justification for not pronouncing the names of God does not derive from the verse in Jeremiah 44.
Michelle suggested it did or that perhaps support for such a policy could be derived from the verse in question.
Brit-Am leaves the matter open.
See the following entries in this posting for more on the subject.

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2. Ben Zentgraf: In Support

Shavua tov [Good Week] Yair,
I support the fact that you remove the Names of God from this forum.
People out there misuse the Name in to many ways - we shouldn't encourage them to use your work to do so too. The worst of these is the sick way I see people misused the Name of our creator for their own flawed religious doctrines of exclusive salvation theories. Similarly evil are the countless people who are prophesying and teaching lies in the Name of our Creator.
There is a time and place for everything.
Regards,
Ben Zentgraf

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3. Use of the Names: Some Sources
Wikipedia has an article on the Names of God which gives some background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism

A short but good basic article on the subject is:
The Name of G-d
http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

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4. The Brit-Am Position concerning use of the names.

"Brit-Am Now"-896
http://britam.org/now/896Now.html
#2. Pronouncing the Name

We said there:

You shall not take the name of THE LORD your God in vain

[Exodus 3:15] AND GOD SAID MOREOVER UNTO MOSES, THUS SHALT THOU SAY UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, THE LORD GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB, HATH SENT ME UNTO YOU: THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER, AND THIS IS MY MEMORIAL UNTO ALL GENERATIONS.

THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER
The word translated as FOR EVER in Hebrew
is read as "le-olam" meaning indeed "forever".
This is how it is READ based on ORAL TRADITION.
It is actually written "le-elam" meaning literally "TO BE HIDDEN" (in the future).
They who reject the Oral Law should therefore be even more careful not to pronounce the name since it was to be hidden.
The Sages said that BOTH readings were applicable.
They implied that there would come a time when the name would need to be hidden though in the future it will once again be used.

Explanation: The Biblical Hebrew verse may be read as saying either THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER [l-olam] or MY NAME SHALL BE [future tense] HIDDEN [le-elam].
They are both spelt the same but if it is read (as at present) "THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER" then it must be supposed that a letter [vav] is missing from t he word "FOREVER" [le-olam] since this is not the usual way to spell it.
The expression in Hebrew LITERALLY reads, MY NAME SHALL BE HIDDEN.
We only read it as, THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER due to the Oral Tradition of the sages.
ALL translations as far as we know accept the Sages ruling on this matter.
The Sages however also said that both the literal meaning as well as their interpretation were equally valid.
They said that even though in the past at one stage the names were freely used there would be a period when they would need not to be.
if you are honest, You have little choice:
You may reject the Oral Law and if you do you should read the verse as saying MY NAME SHALL BE HIDDEN.
Or you can accept the Oral Law and if so one must accept what the Sages say and they say that in our time we should treat the names with respect, only use most of them in prayer, and the one name not use at all.

Brit-Am is duty bound to act as it does but it is not our task to teach Doctrine per se.

A few more points:
Incidentally here and there I have read of archaeological finds etc from Egypt and the Mediterranean World in the early centuries just before the Christian Era.
There was a lot of what we would call witchcraft and a general synthesizing tendency amongst religions in general. Pagans or Jews influenced by pagan were using the Hebrew names for the Almighty and applying them in non-kosher ways.
This alone could have justified not using the names altogether.

The Ten Tribes did not use the Tetragattom [Name of God, YHVH] as we read it but used another name (possibly "Yima") in its place.
They may have done this for the same reason the Rabbis later forbade use of the name, out of respect.

Students of the Bible should study the names and understand something of their meanings.
Some time ago we began an article discussing the different names of god used in the Bible and their meaningns and applications. It turned out to be a little more difficult than we thought
but God willing we shall eventually return to it.

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5. Some Secular but still useful sources
(a) The March/April 2008 issue Biblical Archaeological Review
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswb_BAR/indexBAR.asp
is entirely on the web for this issue.
Articles of interest include a discussion of the Seal of Queen Jezebel.

(b) Yale University has a series of free video lectures on the web 
Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) (Fall, 2006)
http://open.yale.edu/courses/religious_studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebrew-bible/sessions/lecture01.html
We viewed the opening segment of one of these lectures and the quality seemed high enough
though the philosophy behind it was not.
Biblie-believers these days are a minority and in order to advance sometimes we have to make allowance for it.

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