Leviathan in Hebrew
Adam Funk
I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
(illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
the biblical leviathan?
http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed014228edf74ebf74b14d223715
--
Bob just used 'canonical' in the canonical way. [Guy Steele]
Harlan Messinger
> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> the biblical leviathan?
>
> http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed014228edf74ebf74b14d223715
Yes.
Yusuf B Gursey
>
> Yes.
rather expectedly, I would say.
Harlan Messinger
True, I was wondering why one might suspect that the answer would be
"No", especially given that the English word is *from* the Hebrew word.
Adam Funk
Thanks.
> rather expectedly, I would say.
Yes, that's the answer I was expecting.
--
I spend almost as much time figuring out what's wrong with my computer
as I do actually using it. Networked software, especially, requires
frequent updates and maintenance, all of which gets in the way of
doing routine work. (Stoll 1995)
António Marques
Because it's acquired a different meaning? Even when originally written.
Likewise arabic _alla:h_ is often rendered 'Allah', not 'God', in 'the
West'. And 'sodium' is _natrium_ in Latin.
Of course, one might say MH is as much an 'western' language as any other.
Harlan Messinger
> Harlan Messinger wrote, on 24-11-2009 13:55:
>> Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
>>> On Nov 23, 3:22 pm, Harlan Messinger
>>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> Adam Funk wrote:
>>>>> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
>>>>> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
>>>>> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
>>>>> the biblical leviathan?
>>>>> http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed0142...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Yes.
>>>
>>> rather expectedly, I would say.
>>
>> True, I was wondering why one might suspect that the answer would be
>> "No", especially given that the English word is *from* the Hebrew word.
>
> Because it's acquired a different meaning? Even when originally written.
Hobbes was using it for its original, Biblical connotation.
> Likewise arabic _alla:h_ is often rendered 'Allah', not 'God', in 'the
> West'. And 'sodium' is _natrium_ in Latin.
I'm not following you. Are you saying that if someone were translating a
book written in English with the word "Allah" in the title into Arabic,
there's reason to suppose that the Arabic title would use a word other
than "alla:h"?
António Marques
> António Marques wrote:
>> Harlan Messinger wrote, on 24-11-2009 13:55:
>>> Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
>>>> On Nov 23, 3:22 pm, Harlan Messinger
>>>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>> Adam Funk wrote:
>>>>>> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
>>>>>> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
>>>>>> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
>>>>>> the biblical leviathan?
>>>>>> http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed0142...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Yes.
>>>>
>>>> rather expectedly, I would say.
>>>
>>> True, I was wondering why one might suspect that the answer would be
>>> "No", especially given that the English word is *from* the Hebrew word.
>>
>> Because it's acquired a different meaning? Even when originally written.
>
> Hobbes was using it for its original, Biblical connotation.
It's not a book about a sea monster that lived in ancient Israel, nor
about whales.
>> Likewise arabic _alla:h_ is often rendered 'Allah', not 'God', in 'the
>> West'. And 'sodium' is _natrium_ in Latin.
>
> I'm not following you. Are you saying that if someone were translating a
> book written in English with the word "Allah" in the title into Arabic,
> there's reason to suppose that the Arabic title would use a word other
> than "alla:h"?
It would depend on the book. Certainly if someone wrote a book in arabic
with the title "alla:h", there is no guarantee that the english
translation would have the title 'God'.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>And 'sodium' is _natrium_ in Latin.
And Dutch.
And potassium is kalium in Dutch, although the other word is said to
be of Dutch origin (potasch, older spelling of potas = pot ash).
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.eu
Yusuf B Gursey
yes, engilsh speaking muslims want to show solidarity with Arabic and
use "Allah" instead of "God". but the question is of the opposite
direction.
Yusuf B Gursey
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> António Marques wrote:
> > Harlan Messinger wrote, on 24-11-2009 13:55:
> >> Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> >>> On Nov 23, 3:22 pm, Harlan Messinger
> >>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>>> Adam Funk wrote:
> >>>>> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> >>>>> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> >>>>> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> >>>>> the biblical leviathan?
> >>>>>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed0142...
>
> >>>> Yes.
>
> >>> rather expectedly, I would say.
>
> >> True, I was wondering why one might suspect that the answer would be
> >> "No", especially given that the English word is *from* the Hebrew word.
>
> > Because it's acquired a different meaning? Even when originally written.
>
> Hobbes was using it for its original, Biblical connotation.
yes, I had read it.
>
> > Likewise arabic _alla:h_ is often rendered 'Allah', not 'God', in 'the
> > West'. And 'sodium' is _natrium_ in Latin.
>
> I'm not following you. Are you saying that if someone were translating a
> book written in English with the word "Allah" in the title into Arabic,
> there's reason to suppose that the Arabic title would use a word other
> than "alla:h"?
nonetheles, there are some instances in modern arabic where the
spelling of an original arabic word or name is so garbled up, or
simply the writer does not recognize it as such, so that they
transliterate instead of writing the original.
then there are back-loans in arabic like tarsa:na(t) < turkish
tersane "shipyard" < Venetian Italian < arabic da:ru~Sina:3a(t) "house
of manufacturing" sometimes falsely etymologized as tursxa:na(t) with
arabic turs "shield, armor" and persian xa:na "house". nevertheless
some writers are now insisting that da:ru~Sina:3a(t) should be used
instead.
António Marques
If anything I think muslims are more likely to use 'God' than 'Allah'.
Christians usually refer to 'the God of the muslims' as 'Allah'. Though
of course for other words it's as you say.
'...and God won't send us down to Allah to burn'
> but the question is of the opposite direction.
But would a muslim translate an english christian book's title "God"
into arabic as "alla:h"?
Yusuf B Gursey
see:
http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/elem/na.html
<<
Elementymology & Elements Multidict by Peter van der Krogt
Natrium Sodium
Soda (Sodium carbonate, Na2CO3) from the Egyptian salt lakes, and
Potash (Potassium carbonate, K2CO3), obtained from the ashes of plant
material, were known since Antiquity and used for washing. There was
made no difference between both substances, which were named by the
Israelites neter, by the Greek νιτρον (nitron) and by the Romans
nitrum (cf. Nitrogen). Derived from these is the word natron, the name
used by the European alchemists for potash and soda. In Arab, the same
substances were named alkali (see Potassium / Kalium.) The name soda
is a derivation from "sodanum", a Neolatin name for a headache remedy.
This word is derived from Arabic Sudâ (soda) {Suda:3 means
"headache"}. The modern spelling of the element in Arabic uses the
emphatic S (shown uppercase in transliteration) from the original
Arabic word. {for "sodium" Su:diyu:m, usually pronounced in more
colloquial form as So:dyu:m; for "soda" Su:da: ; more colloquially
So:da:}
...
The following explanation comes from Egyptian loan-words in English:
12*) natron
Derives via French and Spanish from Arabic natrun or nitrun, which
derives from Greek nitron (= "soda") (e.g. Herodotus II, 86-87, where
the form litron occures). The Greek derives with certainty from AE
nTrj or nTry.t (netjeri). The Egyptians distinguished between nTrj
Sm' ("southern natron"), stemming from el-Kab, and nTrj mHw ("northern
natron"), stemming from Wadi Natrun (HWB p.445). The Egyptian word was
also borrowed into Akkadian (nit(i)ru) and Hebrew (neter, cf. Jer.
2:22, used for washing). The element Natrium (symbol: Na) derives its
name from natron; alternative name in English: Sodium, from soda.
Natron is a natural mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate
(McGready). Niter is potassium nitrate (KNO3), also called saltpeter,
but originally the word was used as equivalent for natron.
Yusuf B Gursey
yes, as that is the arabic word for "God" used by arab muslims,
christians and jews (or for that matter, atheists).
António Marques
Even by muslims when speaking about 'the christian God'?
Yusuf B Gursey
as I said it depends on the muslim's cultural atitude. Farrakhan's
"Nation of Islam" (as the original NOI of the early 60's) uses
"Allah", but they have very little to do with (mainstream) Islam,
though I heard they were inching towards orthodoxy as well. I had
heard a young African-Amercan lady, havinga religious discussion with
her Christian countepart say "I believe in Allah" (in response to the
question if she belives in God). I believe she was influenced by NOI.
Yusuf B Gursey
and BTW Maltese (a derivative of Arabic spoken by a wholly Christian
population) has Alla
António Marques
> as I said it depends on the muslim's cultural atitude. Farrakhan's
> "Nation of Islam" (as the original NOI of the early 60's) uses
> "Allah", but they have very little to do with (mainstream) Islam,
> though I heard they were inching towards orthodoxy as well. I had
> heard a young African-Amercan lady, havinga religious discussion with
> her Christian countepart say "I believe in Allah" (in response to the
> question if she belives in God). I believe she was influenced by NOI.
My impression is that muslims who are well-acquainted both with
'western' and 'muslim' culture tend to use arabic referents only for
those concepts that belong exclusively (or almost) to 'muslim' culture.
Likewise for non-muslims (and the fact that not many 'westerners' are
familiar with 'muslim' culture would make most of them use 'Allah'). But
it all depends, of course. Even on the audience.
António Marques
Yes, I know that. I know how arabs refer to God. What I'm asking is how
muslims refer to the view of God non-muslims have.
Yusuf B Gursey
> Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 18:49:
>
> > as I said it depends on the muslim's cultural atitude. Farrakhan's
> > "Nation of Islam" (as the original NOI of the early 60's) uses
> > "Allah", but they have very little to do with (mainstream) Islam,
> > though I heard they were inching towards orthodoxy as well. I had
> > heard a young African-Amercan lady, havinga religious discussion with
> > her Christian countepart say "I believe in Allah" (in response to the
> > question if she belives in God). I believe she was influenced by NOI.
>
> My impression is that muslims who are well-acquainted both with
> 'western' and 'muslim' culture tend to use arabic referents only for
still, one finds the use of "Allah" by muslims in english in deference
to the Qur'anic usage, even if well acquainted with western culture.
similarly in non-arabic muslim countries, "Allah" tends to be prefered
to native words for "God" even though the native words survive.
> those concepts that belong exclusively (or almost) to 'muslim' culture.
> Likewise for non-muslims (and the fact that not many 'westerners' are
> familiar with 'muslim' culture would make most of them use 'Allah'). But
> it all depends, of course. Even on the audience.
yes, a muslim trying to acclimatize Islam to a non-muslim western
audience would tend to use "God" and use "Allah" to the converted.
Harlan Messinger
But that would be the reverse of the situation behind the OP's question.
Harlan Messinger
> On Nov 24, 12:04 pm, Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
I think that a person who is not familiar with the context and
background behind Hobbes's title might find it challenging to persuade a
publisher that he is competent to explain the work, let alone translate it.
Adam Funk
The God of Abraham? Same one. Many members of all three religions
agree.
Obviously the people who really want to dislike members of other
religions don't see this.
--
Usenet is a cesspool, a dung heap. [Patrick A. Townson]
Yusuf B Gursey
as I said, the arabic word for "God" is Alla:h by whatever creed they
happen to be or are talking about.
António Marques
> On 2009-11-24, António Marques wrote:
>
> > Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 18:34:
> >> On Nov 24, 1:15 pm, António Marques<antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
> >>> Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 17:57:
> >>>> but the question is of the opposite direction.
>
> >>> But would a muslim translate an english christian book's title "God"
> >>> into arabic as "alla:h"?
>
> >> yes, as that is the arabic word for "God" used by arab muslims,
> >> christians and jews (or for that matter, atheists).
>
> > Even by muslims when speaking about 'the christian God'?
>
> The God of Abraham? Same one. Many members of all three religions
> agree.
According to Yusuf there is just no other name to refer to God in
arabic, no matter what particular view of God one's talking about.
Maybe because, unlike with arabic/Allah, there is no single sacred
language in christianity and judaism has a taboo. But I wonder how it
extends to cover non-Abrahamic monotheisms - oh, wait, there are
almost none.
> Obviously the people who really want to dislike members of other
> religions don't see this.
And there is such a dearth of those.
DKleinecke
I have had considerable difficulty trying to convince hardcore
Christians that Allah and the Christian God are the same. In the
course of such an argument I tend to use "God" and "Allah"
interchangeably. Retrospectively it seems to me to depend on extremely
minor queues back somewhere in my mind which one comes out. This tends
to infuriate hardcore Christians which is, of course, not what I
intend. So far as I know all Muslims accept the Christian God as a
version of Allah - an older inaccurate version - and would not be
offended. A lot depends on context.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On 24 Nov, 20:28, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 2009-11-24, António Marques wrote:
>
> > > Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 18:34:
> > >> On Nov 24, 1:15 pm, António Marques<antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
> > >>> Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 17:57:
> > >>>> but the question is of the opposite direction.
>
> > >>> But would a muslim translate an english christian book's title "God"
> > >>> into arabic as "alla:h"?
>
> > >> yes, as that is the arabic word for "God" used by arab muslims,
> > >> christians and jews (or for that matter, atheists).
>
> > > Even by muslims when speaking about 'the christian God'?
>
> > The God of Abraham? Same one. Many members of all three religions
> > agree.
>
> According to Yusuf there is just no other name to refer to God in
> arabic, no matter what particular view of God one's talking about.
Islam does not make an issue of Divine Names, and neither do the non-
muslim Arabs. according to Islamic tardition there are 99 Most
Beautiful Names of God, and a secret one kown only to the prophets.
Here is part of Qur'an 17:110 : (Yusuf Ali's translation { ... } are
my comments, (...) Yusuf Ali's)
Say: "Call upon God {Alla:h}, or
Call upon {ar-}Rah.ma:n {the most Benificient}:
By whatever name ye call
Upon Him, (it is well):
For to him belong
The Most Beautiful Names.
...
> Maybe because, unlike with arabic/Allah, there is no single sacred
> language in christianity and judaism has a taboo. But I wonder how it
> extends to cover non-Abrahamic monotheisms - oh, wait, there are
> almost none.
Islam recognizes that (the Qur'an says) a (monotheistic) prophet was
sent to every nation and that not all the prophets are named in the
Qur'an. what muslim traditionalists is Islamize national myths (the
historian Rashiduddin, the son of a jewish convert, a physician and
chronicler to the muslim Ilkhanid court, is a prime example). thus the
Tengriism (Heaven worship) of the Turks and Mongols became to the
Turks and muslim Mongols a monotheistic religion.
Odysseus
Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2009-11-24, Ant�nio Marques wrote:
>
> > Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 18:34:
> >> On Nov 24, 1:15 pm, Ant�nio Marques<antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
<snip>
> >>> [W]ould a muslim translate an english christian book's title
> >>> "God" into arabic as "alla:h"?
> >>
> >> yes, as that is the arabic word for "God" used by arab muslims,
> >> christians and jews (or for that matter, atheists).
> >
> > Even by muslims when speaking about 'the christian God'?
>
> The God of Abraham? Same one. Many members of all three religions
> agree.
A better example might be a god worshipped by polytheists or animists;
for example pre-Islamic Arabs are said to have been particularly devoted
to a lunar deity. Is that "an allah" in Arabic literature about the
culture of the period? Might an Indian Muslim say his neighbours are
attending the festival of a Vedic "allah"?
--
Odysseus
Yusuf B Gursey
> In article <m8stt6xfih....@news.ducksburg.com>,
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>
> > On 2009-11-24, António Marques wrote:
>
> > > Yusuf B Gursey wrote, on 24-11-2009 18:34:
>
> <snip>
>
> > >>> [W]ould a muslim translate an english christian book's title
> > >>> "God" into arabic as "alla:h"?
>
> > >> yes, as that is the arabic word for "God" used by arab muslims,
> > >> christians and jews (or for that matter, atheists).
>
> > > Even by muslims when speaking about 'the christian God'?
>
> > The God of Abraham? Same one. Many members of all three religions
> > agree.
>
> A better example might be a god worshipped by polytheists or animists;
> for example pre-Islamic Arabs are said to have been particularly devoted
> to a lunar deity. Is that "an allah" in Arabic literature about the
classifying Arabian and some other Semitic dieties as "Solar" (if they
are female) and "Lunar" (if they are male) is an obsolete method of
classification, since more about Arabian religion came to be known.
Alla:h was the chief of the pagan Arabic pantheon. it is a contraction
of al-'ila:h "the Deity", so it was originally an unnamed deity
(perhaps because the original name became taboo), but through usage it
became a proper name. it was also the name of God for pre-lslamic Arab
christians. in the form al-'ila:h it stands for God ("christian") in
the Zebed (southern Syria) arabic inscription of 512 CE. see:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/zebed.html
some early commentators of the Qur'an recognized the etymology and
even suggested that it could be interpreted as "the Deity" in certain
verses of the Qur'an, although it is not used so in what is known as
the Classical Arabic of the early grammarians, where it is a proper
noun. the Qur'an accuses the pagan arabs of being << mu*sh*riku:n >>
litterally meaning "associators (of other dieties besides Allah).
> culture of the period? Might an Indian Muslim say his neighbours are
> attending the festival of a Vedic "allah"?
using arabic words they would say "attending the festival of a Vedic
<< 'ila:h >> {i.e. "god, lower case", deity}"
>
> --
> Odysseus
DKleinecke
Shouldn't you also consider the Hebrew forms? The old Hebrew god did
have a personal name - YHWH - but is also referred to as Elohim and
other ways. There is long presentation of the evidence signed by
Martin Rose in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
In Ugarit the chief god was EL and EL is used in Hebrew in combining
forms. The third letter in the "root" ALH worries me because the
easiest way to read it is as feminine (!) form of AL. Rose says the
origin of the H "is debated in philological research". By itself the H
might be explained away as a freak, but the same thing happens to YHWH
where the combining form in YHW (or even YH - but that gets us
entangled in vocalization problem). Is the final H perhaps the remains
of an old definite article lost everywhere else?
Is EL (or any other word for god) known in a broader Afro-Asiatic
context?
Yusuf B Gursey
depends upon the view these non-muslims have. but the most common
accusation is that of *sh*irk, "associating (God with others)", i.e.
tendencies towards polytheism.
Peter T. Daniels
There are authoritative discussions in the TWAT = TDOT = Theological
Dictionary of the Old Testament (arranged by Hebrew term)..
Yusuf B Gursey
(it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
I has read somewhere that in the Old Canaanite pantheon El was the
supreme deity. When the Hebrews emerged victorious, they equated their
own tribal god Yahweh with El and eliminated the others.
> other ways. There is long presentation of the evidence signed by
> Martin Rose in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
>
> In Ugarit the chief god was EL and EL is used in Hebrew in combining
> forms. The third letter in the "root" ALH worries me because the
> easiest way to read it is as feminine (!) form of AL. Rose says the
> origin of the H "is debated in philological research". By itself the H
it is probably related in what an author calls pre-Proto-Semitic in
which biliteral roots became trlitiral by the addition of a suffix.
the old semitic feminine is -t , its reflex -h comes later.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Nov 28, 9:37 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Shouldn't you also consider the Hebrew forms? The old Hebrew god did
> > have a personal name - YHWH - but is also referred to as Elohim and
>
> (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
<iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
> I has read somewhere that in the Old Canaanite pantheon El was the
> supreme deity. When the Hebrews emerged victorious, they equated their
> own tribal god Yahweh with El and eliminated the others.
Well ... that's the sort of thing they might have taught in Sunday
School, based on 19th-century-style early interpretations of of the
first Ugar. epics discovered in the early 1930s and influenced by
"biblical archeology" -- these questions are continually under
discussion, of course, but you should at least know better than to
equate "the Hebrews" with anyone responsible for the theology of the
TaNaKh.
> > other ways. There is long presentation of the evidence signed by
> > Martin Rose in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
>
> > In Ugarit the chief god was EL and EL is used in Hebrew in combining
> > forms. The third letter in the "root" ALH worries me because the
> > easiest way to read it is as feminine (!) form of AL. Rose says the
> > origin of the H "is debated in philological research". By itself the H
>
> it is probably related in what an author calls pre-Proto-Semitic in
> which biliteral roots became trlitiral by the addition of a suffix.
> the old semitic feminine is -t , its reflex -h comes later.
The singular occurs 3x (IIRC) in the text, vocalized <'eloah>, not
referring to YHWH.
> > might be explained away as a freak, but the same thing happens to YHWH
> > where the combining form in YHW (or even YH - but that gets us
> > entangled in vocalization problem). Is the final H perhaps the remains
> > of an old definite article lost everywhere else?
>
> > Is EL (or any other word for god) known in a broader Afro-Asiatic
> > context?-
Joachim Pense
>>
>> (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>
> <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
>
Depending on dialect and time.
Joachim
Peter T. Daniels
The alphabet didn't change over place and time. (Digamma was long,
long gone by the time anyone might have had occasion to write
"Yahweh.")
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Nov 28, 11:49 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
> > On Nov 28, 9:37 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Shouldn't you also consider the Hebrew forms? The old Hebrew > > > god did
> > > have a personal name - YHWH - but is also referred to as
> > > Elohim and
>
> > (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>
> <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
OK. thanks.
>
> > I has read somewhere that in the Old Canaanite pantheon El was
usually as 'El `Elyon
I could reference Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion
and
OTTO EISSFELDT
EL AND YAHWEH
J Semitic Studies 1956 1: 25-37; doi:10.1093/jss/1.1.25
<<
... In this case Yahweh does not acknowledge
El as being superior to Himself, but veneration to this El is
shown by one who, although historically not yet a follower of
Yahweh and also not yet a true Israelite, was nevertheless regarded
by later generations as the founder of the faith in the only
true God, namely Yahweh.
But beyond this the Old Testament contains also a few unequivocal
proofs that during the course of Israelite Jewish
religious history there was a period when El or 'Elyon, who is
identical with him, was an authority acknowledged by, and accordingly
superior to, Yahweh. Two of these may be quoted. To
begin with, Deut..xxxii. 8-9, i.e. the Song of Moses, says that at
the time when 'Elyon allotted their possessions to the peoples,
divided men up, and determined the territories of the nations
according to the number of the gods, Yahweh received Israel as
his share. 'Elyon, therefore, appears at the head of the gods
deciding according to his own judgement the apportioning of the
people to them and hence takes precedence over Yahweh. The
author of the Song, it is true, when speaking of Yahweh's relationship
to his people, avoids, probably intentionally, the
application of the hitherto used active verbal form, and so does
not say directly that 'Elyon gave Israel or Jacob to Yahweh as
his portion; but is content to establish the fact that Israel has
become the property of Yahweh. The real acknowledgement of
El as the highest god expressing itself in worship had, at the
time when our Song came into existence, apparently already given
way to the belief that, at least for Israel, Yahweh was the only
real God, since at the end it summons not only the heavens but
also all gods to acclaim Yahweh.2 But this did not exclude the
retention of the notion—intended to be more cosmological and
mythological than religious and cultic—of 'Elyon as the god
who had apportioned the peoples of the world to their gods.
Moreover, Ps. lxxxii speaks of a monarchic status of El, superior
to that of the other gods and among them Yahweh. This psalm
clearly presents Yahweh in the congregation of El, i.e. in the
council of gods led by El as judge, or rather as accuser against
the other gods, reproaching them for neglecting the administration
of justice and so causing the dissolution of all order, and
declaring that his opinion that they were gods and sons of 'Elyon
had proved to be mistaken, and that on the contrary they must
die like human officials. ...
>>
but I seem to remember a more recent scholarly article on the same
theme, either in JSS or J. of Near East Studies but I couldn't find
it.
> > the
> > supreme deity. When the Hebrews emerged victorious, they equated > > their
> > own tribal god Yahweh with El and eliminated the others.
>
> Well ... that's the sort of thing they might have taught in Sunday
> School, based on 19th-century-style early interpretations of of the
> first Ugar. epics discovered in the early 1930s and influenced by
> "biblical archeology" -- these questions are continually under
> discussion, of course, but you should at least know better than to
> equate "the Hebrews" with anyone responsible for the theology of
> the TaNaKh.
the Israelites then? at any rate the tribe that was responsible for
the changing of Old Canaanite religion to what eventually became
Judaism.
>
> > > other ways. There is long presentation of the evidence signed > > > by
> > > Martin Rose in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
>
> > > In Ugarit the chief god was EL and EL is used in Hebrew in
> > > combining
> > > forms. The third letter in the "root" ALH worries me because
> > > the
> > > easiest way to read it is as feminine (!) form of AL. Rose
> > > says the
> > > origin of the H "is debated in philological research". By
> > > itself the H
>
> > it is probably related in what an author calls pre-Proto-Semitic > > in
> > which biliteral roots became trlitiral by the addition of a
> > suffix.
> > the old semitic feminine is -t , its reflex -h comes later.
>
> The singular occurs 3x (IIRC) in the text, vocalized <'eloah>, not
> referring to YHWH.
'el can also mean just simply "deity". the -i:m of 'elohi:m is suffix.
Joachim Pense
> On Nov 29, 10:39 am, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
>>
>>
>>
>> >> (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>>
>> > <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
>>
>> Depending on dialect and time.
>
> The alphabet didn't change over place and time. (Digamma was long,
> long gone by the time anyone might have had occasion to write
> "Yahweh.")
But both Mycenean and Modern Greek had v and w. I think v was gone, but I
think Doric (and others) kept it for longer.
I don't know when beta and gamma became glides. AFAIK both were glides in
Middle Greek, which is of course a couple of centuries later.
Joachim
Peter T. Daniels
> On Nov 29, 8:22 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Nov 28, 11:49 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
> > > On Nov 28, 9:37 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Shouldn't you also consider the Hebrew forms? The old Hebrew > > > god did
> > > > have a personal name - YHWH - but is also referred to as
> > > > Elohim and
>
> > > (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>
> > <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
>
> OK. thanks.
>
>
>
> > > I has read somewhere that in the Old Canaanite pantheon El was
>
> usually as 'El `Elyon
>
> I could reference Wikipedia
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion
>
> and
>
> OTTO EISSFELDT
> EL AND YAHWEH
> J Semitic Studies 1956 1: 25-37; doi:10.1093/jss/1.1.25
Please. Look at the date of this article. The "OT" is understood very
differently a half-century later.
What are you, some kind of reductionist? What does "Israelite" refer
to? What evidence do you have for a "tribe"? What evidence do you have
that there was anything that could be recognized as an "Old Canaanite
religion"? (What is an "Old Canaanite"?) What possible evidence do you
have that the former "became," two thousand years later, "Judaism"?
(If "Judaism" can be defined as what is set forth in the Talmud.)
(Yes, once again -- cf. the "infinitive" thread -- I am insisting that
terms be used with precision.)
> > > > other ways. There is long presentation of the evidence signed > > > by
> > > > Martin Rose in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
>
> > > > In Ugarit the chief god was EL and EL is used in Hebrew in
> > > > combining
> > > > forms. The third letter in the "root" ALH worries me because
> > > > the
> > > > easiest way to read it is as feminine (!) form of AL. Rose
> > > > says the
> > > > origin of the H "is debated in philological research". By
> > > > itself the H
>
> > > it is probably related in what an author calls pre-Proto-Semitic > > in
> > > which biliteral roots became trlitiral by the addition of a
> > > suffix.
> > > the old semitic feminine is -t , its reflex -h comes later.
>
> > The singular occurs 3x (IIRC) in the text, vocalized <'eloah>, not
> > referring to YHWH.
>
> 'el can also mean just simply "deity". the -i:m of 'elohi:m is suffix.
And what is the h?
Peter T. Daniels
The letters "beta" and "gamma" didn't do anything. They still use them
today.
All we have is the spelling <iabe>, which in itself tells us nothing
at all about the phonetics of the borrowed word -- only that it's the
closest approximation to the pronunciation that could be managed with
the Greek alphabet.
Joachim Pense
> On Nov 29, 1:13 pm, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
>>
>> > On Nov 29, 10:39 am, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>> >> Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
>>
>> >> >> (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>>
>> >> > <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
>>
>> >> Depending on dialect and time.
>>
>> > The alphabet didn't change over place and time. (Digamma was long,
>> > long gone by the time anyone might have had occasion to write
>> > "Yahweh.")
>>
>> But both Mycenean and Modern Greek had v and w. I think v was gone, but I
>> think Doric (and others) kept it for longer.
>>
>> I don't know when beta and gamma became glides. AFAIK both were glides in
>> Middle Greek, which is of course a couple of centuries later.
>
> The letters "beta" and "gamma" didn't do anything. They still use them
> today.
>
They are pronounced as glides from the mid of the first millennium at least.
joachim
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Nov 29, 1:00 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Nov 29, 8:22 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Nov 28, 11:49 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
> > > > On Nov 28, 9:37 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Shouldn't you also consider the Hebrew forms? The old Hebrew > > > god did
> > > > > have a personal name - YHWH - but is also referred to as
> > > > > Elohim and
>
> > > > (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>
> > > <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
>
> > OK. thanks.
>
> > > > I has read somewhere that in the Old Canaanite pantheon El was
>
> > usually as 'El `Elyon
>
> > I could reference Wikipedia
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion
>
> > and
>
> > OTTO EISSFELDT
> > EL AND YAHWEH
> > J Semitic Studies 1956 1: 25-37; doi:10.1093/jss/1.1.25
>
> Please. Look at the date of this article. The "OT" is understood very
> differently a half-century later.
>
>
yes, I realize that, but I do remember reading similar conclusions in
an article a decade or so old, I just can't remember it. it used
archeaological (epigraphic) evidence as well.
I don't have any particular opinions on this field other than what I
happen to read.
> to? What evidence do you have for a "tribe"? What evidence do you have
look, I will differ to your knowledge and expertise in this matter,
just tell me how to phrase it. I think there is evidence for a <byt
y*sh*r'l> or something like that. so there was a grouping called the
Israelites, at least.
> that there was anything that could be recognized as an "Old Canaanite
> religion"? (What is an "Old Canaanite"?) What possible evidence do you
> have that the former "became," two thousand years later, "Judaism"?
> (If "Judaism" can be defined as what is set forth in the Talmud.)
>
I had more in mind pre-Talmudic Judaic religion.
> (Yes, once again -- cf. the "infinitive" thread -- I am insisting that
> terms be used with precision.)
>
>
>
>
>
> > > > > other ways. There is long presentation of the evidence signed > > > by
> > > > > Martin Rose in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
>
> > > > > In Ugarit the chief god was EL and EL is used in Hebrew in
> > > > > combining
> > > > > forms. The third letter in the "root" ALH worries me because
> > > > > the
> > > > > easiest way to read it is as feminine (!) form of AL. Rose
> > > > > says the
> > > > > origin of the H "is debated in philological research". By
> > > > > itself the H
>
> > > > it is probably related in what an author calls pre-Proto-Semitic > > in
> > > > which biliteral roots became trlitiral by the addition of a
> > > > suffix.
> > > > the old semitic feminine is -t , its reflex -h comes later.
>
> > > The singular occurs 3x (IIRC) in the text, vocalized <'eloah>, not
> > > referring to YHWH.
>
> > 'el can also mean just simply "deity". the -i:m of 'elohi:m is suffix.
>
> And what is the h?
I think it was postulated as an intensifying suffix by an article you
had reccomended to me about triliteralization in "pre-proto-ssemitic".
Yusuf B Gursey
sorry, that's the Tell Dan Inscription <byt dwd> "House of David"
Peter T. Daniels
No space -- the inscription uses word dividers, and there is none
there.
In Assyrian inscriptions, the "tribe" of Jerusalem is the bi-it hu-um-
ri, or descendants of Omri.
DKleinecke
I think the present most-supported opinion is that the Israelites are
the older Canaanites after a religious "reform" in which they gave
their alligience to YHWH - presumably thereby declaring their
independence from the Egyptians. The twelve tribes would be a
construct from the period just prior to the building of the temple in
Jerusalem.
I think the Assyrians were referring to the dynasty ruling in
Jerusalem rather than the nation (and they were doing it incorrectly
according to standard tradition by calling jehu a member of that
dynasty - unless, of course, they knew more than we do and Jehu really
did belong to the family of Omri).
How YHWH is pronounced comes, I believe, from Clement of Alexandria
who says, without attribution, that his version is what the Samaritans
called YHWH. Being Clement he is probably quoting some other writer.
Yusuf B Gursey
IIRC there is a passage in the Hebrew Old Testament that gives a clue
as to its meaning,and hence its voweling, and this is in accord with
the Greek rendition.
Yusuf B Gursey
the relationship between biliteral roots and triliteral roots, and
hence trilteral roots amongst themselves is dealt with in
Christopher Ehret "The Origins of the Third Consonants in
Semitic Roots," Journal of Afroasiatic Languages 2 (2) [1989]:
(109-202)
this journal is unavailable to me. perhaps the relationship between
'el and 'eloah (or 'il and 'ila:h) is dealt there. however, the same
author returns to the same question in Appendix I, "Pre-Proto-Semitic
Roots (Additional to those presented in Ehret 1989)" of the following
book:
Author: Ehret, Christopher.
Title: Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian) : vowels,
tone,
consonants, and vocabulary / Christopher Ehret.
Published: Berkeley : University of California Press, c1995.
Description: xvii, 557 p. ; 26 cm.
where there is an addendum to the list he compiled in the journal
article. on p. 493 he has the following list (I changed the
trascription system a little):
reconstructed root *bl "to proceed, move along"
related forms in arabic extension (or
suffix)
(#14)
bal'az "to flee; jump, run *' cocncisive;*z intensive
bulu:q "to reach, come to" *k(w)' andative
balHas "to flee from fear" *H iterative; *s' fortative
balhas "to walk fast" *h amplificative; *s'
fortative or *š non-finitive
so he has a suffix *h amplificative which is my simple guess for the
relation between 'il and 'ila:h or 'el and 'eloah . of course, Ehret
may say something else.in his paper (I would strongly expect that he
reconstructed a relationship)/
Peter T. Daniels
Nope. For one thing, it's not a verb.
The examples of "h amplificative" in Table 2 are:
'amh
'anh
rafh
Sarah
kamah
mauh
maih
nazh
wamah
(I don't know why a couple of them are disyllabic.)
The supplemental Tables 38 and 39 yield:
badh
jalh
Sarhaf
wajh
nabh
(Ephraim Isaac used to bring a box of journals wherever he went and
hand them out; over the years I acquired 6 of the 8 issues, all except
2/1 and 3/2.)
Yusuf B Gursey
>
> > On Nov 28, 9:37 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Shouldn't you also consider the Hebrew forms? The old Hebrew god did
> > > have a personal name - YHWH - but is also referred to as Elohim and
>
> > (it's attested as yahweh in Greek)
>
> <iabe>, actually -- Greek is singularly lacking in glides.
Yahweh in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
<<
...
In the 19th century, the Hebrew scholar Gesenius proposed the form
יַהְוֶה based on Epiphanius's Greek transcription Ιαβε (representing
Yave) of a term used by some Gnostic circles.
...
Throughout the discussion between Yahweh and Moses, Moses seems
reluctant to attempt to lead Israel out of Egypt. At one point, he
said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell
them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you;’ and they ask me,
‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?”[20]
God replied, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the
children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God said moreover
to Moses:
You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, the God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial
to all generations. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and
tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely
visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt; and I have
said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land
of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite,
and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey."
– Exodus 3:14-17 (WEB)[21]
This introduction to “Yahweh” as the personal name of God associates
the divine name with the Hebrew verb “hayah” meaning “to be.” “I will
be what I will be” indicates “My nature will become evident from my
actions.” Later in Exodus, God frequently declares that from his
actions (such as the ten plagues) Israel and Egypt “shall know that I
am Yahweh.”[22] Thus, as God, Yahweh is revealed by both his personal
name and his mighty deeds in history rather than a mere list of
characteristics.
...
Josephus's description of vowels
Josephus in Jewish Wars, chapter V, verse 235, wrote "τὰ ἱερὰ
γράμματα*ταῦτα δ' ἐστὶ φωνήεντα τέσσαρα" ("...[engraved with] the holy
letters; and they are four vowels"), presumably because Hebrew yod and
waw, even if consonantal, would have to be transcribed into the Greek
of the time as vowels.
Conclusions
Various people draw various conclusions from this Greek material.
William Smith writes in his 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible" about the
different Hebrew forms supported by these Greek forms:
... The votes of others are divided between יַהְוֶה (yahveh) or
יַהֲוֶה (yahaveh), supposed to be represented by the Ιαβέ of
Epiphanius mentioned above, and יַהְוָה (yahvah) or יַהֲוָה (yahavah),
which Fürst holds to be the Ιευώ of Porphyry, or the Ιαού of Clemens
Alexandrinus.
Early Greek and Latin forms
The writings of the Church Fathers contain several references to God's
name in Greek or Latin.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) and B.D. Eerdmans:[68]
Diodorus Siculus[69] writes Ἰαῶ (Iao);
Irenaeus reports[70] that the Gnostics formed a compound Ἰαωθ (Iaoth)
with the last syllable of Sabaoth. He also reports[71] that the
Valentinian heretics use Ἰαῶ (Iao);
Clement of Alexandria[72] writes Ἰαοὺ (Iaou)—see also below;
Origen of Alexandria,[73] Iao;
Porphyry,[74] Ἰευώ (Ieuo);
Epiphanius (d. 404), who was born in Palestine and spent a
considerable part of his life there, gives[75]Ia and Iabe (one codex
Iaue);
Pseudo-Jerome,[76] tetragrammaton legi potest Iaho;
Theodoret (d. c. 457) writes Ἰάω (Iao); he also reports[77] that the
Samaritans say Ἰαβέ (Iabe), Ἰαβαι (Iabai), while the Jews say Ἀϊά
(Aia).[78] (The latter is probably not יהוה but אהיה Ehyeh = "I am",
Exod. 3:14 which the Jews counted among the names of God.)
James of Edessa [79]), Jehjeh;
Jerome[80] speaks of certain ignorant Greek writers who transcribed
the Hebrew Divine name יהוה as ΠΙΠΙ.
Clement's Stromata
Clement of Alexandria writes in Stromata V, 6:34-35:
"Πάλιν τὸ παραπέτασμα τῆς εἰς τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων παρόδου, κίονες
τέτταρες αὐτόθι, ἁγίας μήνυμα τετράδος διαθηκῶν παλαιῶν, ἀτὰρ καὶ τὸ
τετράγραμμον ὄνομα τὸ μυστικόν, ὃ περιέκειντο οἷς μόνοις τὸ ἄδυτον
βάσιμον ἦν· λέγεται δὲ Ἰαού, ὃ μεθερμηνεύεται ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἐσόμενος. Καὶ
μὴν καὶ καθʼ Ἕλληνας θεὸς τὸ ὄνομα τετράδα περιέχει
γραμμάτων." (Reinhold Koltz text)
The translation[9] of Clement's Stromata in Volume II of the classic
Ante-Nicene Fathers series renders this as:
"... Further, the mystic name of four letters which was affixed to
those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called Jave, which
is interpreted, 'Who is and shall be.' The name of God, too [i.e.,
θεὸς], among the Greeks contains four letters."[81]
Of Clement's Stromata there is only one surviving manuscript, the
Codex L (Codex Laurentianus V 3), from the 11th century. Other sources
are later copies of that ms. and a few dozen quotations from this work
by other authors. For Stromata V,6:34, Codex L has ἰαοὺ. The critical
edition by Otto Stählin (1905)[82] gives the forms
"Ἰαουέ Didymus Taurinensis de pronunc. divini nominis quatuor
literarum (Parmae 1799) p. 32ff, ἰαοὺ L, ἰὰ οὐαὶ Nic., ἰὰ οὐὲ Mon.
9.82 Reg. 1888 Taurin. III 50 (bei Did.), ἰαοῦε Coisl. Seg. 308 Reg.
1825."
and has Ἰαουε in the running text. The Additions and Corrections page
gives a reference to an author who rejects the change of ἰαοὺ into
Ἰαουε.[83]
Other editors give similar data. A catena (Latin: chain) referred to
by A. le Boulluec[84] ("Coisl. 113 fol. 368v") and by Smith’s 1863 "A
Dictionary of the Bible" ("a catena to the Pentateuch in a MS. at
Turin") is reported to have "ια ουε".
Verb origin
In the Book of Exodus[Exod. 3:13-16] the name Yahweh is explained as I
am who I am and as I am.
The Hebrew verb for to be, not often explicitly used, is yehiyeh in
the future tense (will be), howeh in the present tense (is), and hayah
in the past tense (was). As a consonantal language, the important
elements of these words are YHYH, HWH, and HYH, respectively; the
letter combination YHWH has therefore been interpreted by some[who?],
in light of the biblical explanation, to be an amalgamation of the
three tenses, to create a sense of something which simultaneously is
in the past, present, and future.
A root hawah is represented in Hebrew by the nouns howah (Ezek., Isa.
xlvii. II)[citation needed] and hawwah (Ps., Prov., Job) "disaster,
calamity, ruin."[85] The primary meaning is probably "sink down,
fall", in which sense (common in Arabic) the verb appears in Job
xxxvii. 6 (of snow falling to earth).[citation needed]
A Catholic commentator of the 16th century, Hieronymus ab Oleastro,
seems to have been the first to connect the name "Jehova" with "howah"
interpreting it as "contritio sive pernicies" (destruction of the
Egyptians and Canaanites). Daumer, adopting the same etymology, took
it in a more general sense: Yahweh, as well as Shaddai, meant
"Destroyer", and fitly expressed the nature of the terrible god who he
identified with Moloch.
The derivation of Yahweh from hawah is formally unimpeachable, and is
adopted by many recent[86] scholars, who proceed, however, from the
primary sense of the root rather than from the specific meaning of the
nouns. The name is accordingly interpreted, He (who) falls (baetyl,
βαιτυλος, meteorite); or causes (rain or lightning) to fall (storm
god); or casts down (his foes, by his thunderbolts). It is obvious
that if the derivation be correct, the significance of the name, which
in itself denotes only "He falls" or "He fells", must be learned, if
at all, from early Semitic conceptions of the nature of Yahweh rather
than from etymology.
...
DKleinecke
YHWH, according to the "fall" theory is the name of the God who sends
meteorites. And that opens a can of worms - including the black stone
in the Kaaba in Mecca. There seems to be some evidence of worshipping
meteorite gods (usually as Zeus or Zeus equivalents). I have read
somewhere sometime that the "abomination of desolation" was the
meteorite that some pagan king established in the temple at Jerusalem
thinking to merge all these sky gods into one.
What they have to do with the missiles the angels threw at the jinn is
yet another question.
I am inclined to leave YHW(H) as a proper name and not try to explain
it.
Yusuf B Gursey
usually propernames have an etymology as well.
DKleinecke
I accept that - but their etymologies are unlike other etymologies. My
first name "David" has an etymology - "borrowed from Old Hebrew
probably meaning beloved" but my last name has no known etymology.
Kleinecke follows a well-known pattern - Meinecke, Reinecke and so on
- but that does not help explain its origin. I would suspect there is
a Slav in the woodworks except Hanover is pretty far west for a Slav.
alan
Isn't [-ecke] a diminutive suffix in the Hessische dialect?
PaulJK
> On Dec 2, 8:56 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>> On Dec 2, 8:25 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I am inclined to leave YHW(H) as a proper name and not try to explain
>>> it.
>>
>> usually propernames have an etymology as well.
>
> I accept that - but their etymologies are unlike other etymologies. My
> first name "David" has an etymology - "borrowed from Old Hebrew
> probably meaning beloved" but my last name has no known etymology.
> Kleinecke follows a well-known pattern - Meinecke, Reinecke and so on
I don't understand that. Are you saying that you don't know
what "klein", "mein", "rein", and "ecke" mean in German?
A farming settlement with a small allotment of land in a remote
place might have easily got called Kleinecke.
I can't think of any names looking more Germanic.
> - but that does not help explain its origin. I would suspect there is
> a Slav in the woodworks except Hanover is pretty far west for a Slav.
There were times when Danes were building stone and earth walls
to defend themselves against invading Slavic tribes. The bits of
the wall are still visible today. So the Lusatians, Pomoranians,
White Croatians, or whoever they were, were not that far from
Hannover. However, on the surface your name doesn't immediately
suggest to me anything Slavic.
pjk
Joachim Pense
> DKleinecke wrote:
>> On Dec 2, 8:56 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>>> On Dec 2, 8:25 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
>>>> I am inclined to leave YHW(H) as a proper name and not try to explain
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> usually propernames have an etymology as well.
>>
>> I accept that - but their etymologies are unlike other etymologies. My
>> first name "David" has an etymology - "borrowed from Old Hebrew
>> probably meaning beloved" but my last name has no known etymology.
>> Kleinecke follows a well-known pattern - Meinecke, Reinecke and so on
>
> I don't understand that. Are you saying that you don't know
> what "klein", "mein", "rein", and "ecke" mean in German?
> A farming settlement with a small allotment of land in a remote
> place might have easily got called Kleinecke.
> I can't think of any names looking more Germanic.
>
I don't believe the "ecke" part. A diminutive -ke sounds more plausible to
me than a noun meaning "corner". Alan suggests its Hessian; maybe, I
thought it was further north.
Joqdhim
Yusuf B Gursey
OK. they may be more obscure, but that does not mean that etymologies
are impossible. Yahweh happens to have a fairly straightforward one.
Adam Funk
leviathan \luh-VYE-uh-thun\ noun
1 : the political state; especially : a totalitarian state having
a vast bureaucracy
*2 : something large or formidable
Example sentence:
Towering leviathans of the forest, these giant sequoias often
reach heights of more than 200 feet.
Did you know?
Old Testament references to a huge sea monster, "Leviathan" (in
Hebrew, "Liwyathan"), are thought to spring from an ancient myth
in which the god Baal slays a multiheaded sea monster. Leviathan
appears in the book of Psalms, as a sea serpent that is killed by
God and then given as food to the Hebrews in the wilderness, and
it is referred to in the book of Job as well. We began equating
"Leviathan" with the political state after the philosopher Thomas
Hobbes used the word in (and as the title of) his 1651 political
treatise on government. Today, "Leviathan" often suggests a
crushing political bureaucracy. "Leviathan" can also be immensely
useful as a general term meaning "something monstrous or of
enormous size."
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?12.04.2009
(Personally, I think I'd sooner describe a giant tree as a
"behemoth"...)
--
Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix.
I don't think that this is a coincidence. [anonymous]
DKleinecke
There is a lot of German literature on these names. So far as i can
tell they all cancel out. No body accepts -ecke as corner in these
names. The confusing party is why the first syllable runs through so
many rhymes in -ein and in nothing else.
I don't know that they all come from Hanover. I don't even know that
my gggf came from Hanover. In the 30's when the Nazis were trying to
recruit Germans all over the world into the thousand year Reich it was
the Kleinecke's in Hanover that contacted my family.
alan
I don't know what you mean by the German literature cancelling itself out,
but I do agree that the -ecke part of your name has nothing to do with a
"corner".
There are, by the way, plenty of German names ending in -ecke that have no
preceding -ein; Noldecke, Schwarzecke, Waldecke, Hansecke, Friedecke,
Janecke, Grosecke, Paulecke, Blumecke, Baumecke, Thomecke, and Karlecke are
just a few.
-ecke is just a diminutive suffix. Variations are -ick, icke, and (as
Joachim suggested)
-ke.
Dennis
> Adam Funk wrote:
>> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
>> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
>> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
>> the biblical leviathan?
>>
>> http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
>> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> Yes.
What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
"Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
modern Hebrew.
Are the same publishers coming out with a Hebrew version of "Moby
Dick"? :-) Let the Bible Code people loose on that!
Dennis
Yusuf B Gursey
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > Adam Funk wrote:
> >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > Yes.
>
> What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> modern Hebrew.
>
The International standard Bible encyclopedia says under "Leviathan"
by G. P. Hugenberger that it is liwya:*th*a:n; cf. Heb. liwya:
"wreath"; Arab. lawa: {lawa"} "to twist" . {BDB says it may be a
loanword.}
... << Job 41:1-34 (MT 40:25-41-26) the most extended description of
Leviathan, suggests to many the crocodile (so RSVmg.). >>
under "Behemoth" it says << Heb. b&he:mo:*th* (Job 40:15). Apparently
the intensive plural of b&he:ma:, "beast". The same form
b&he:mo:*th* occurs in other passages ... where it is not rendered
"behemoth" but "beasts" The reference in Job is to some marsh-dwelling
mammoth such as Hippopotamus amphibius which inhabits the Nile and
other African rivers. In hte Apocyrpha the name denotes the male
counterpart of Leviathan (2 Esd. 6:49, 52), while in the Targum on Ps.
50:10 it alludes to the "ox o fthe open field. >>
"The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible" says under "Leviathan" by
T.H. Gaster <<..."coiled one"... . A prototype of the cosmogonic myth
appears in the Canaanite texts from Ras-Shamra-Ugarit (fourteenth
century B.C.) where Baal defeats the draconic L-t-n; while the
apocalyptic version is probably influenced by parallel Iranian beliefs
concerning the dragon Aži Dahaka cf. Yasht 13.62). ...
In Job 41:1; Ps. 104:26, the term "Leviathan" is used by extension a
sea monster in general, without mythological implication. >>
under "Behemoth"by T.H. Gaster it says << ... Behemoth, like
Leviathan, is said to be one of the "great sea monsters" fashioned on
the fifth day of creation (Gen. 1:21). >>
Yusuf B Gursey
> > Adam Funk wrote:
> >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > Yes.
>
> What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> modern Hebrew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan
<<
Leviathan (pronounced /lɨˈvaɪ.əθən/; Hebrew: לִוְיָתָן, Modern
Livyatan Tiberian Liwyāṯān ; "twisted, coiled"), is a sea monster
referred to in the Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament). The word
leviathan has become synonymous with any large sea monster or
creature. In modern literature (such as the novel Moby-Dick) it refers
to great whales, and in Modern Hebrew, it means simply "whale."
...
The word "Leviathan" appears in four places in the Bible, with the
Book of Job, chapter 41 being dedicated to describing Leviathan in
detail:
2. Book of Job 41:1-34 "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?
or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an
hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? ... his
teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride, shut up
together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air
can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick
together, that they cannot be sundered. By his neesings a light doth
shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his
mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his
nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath
kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. ...
4. Psalms 104:24-26: "O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom
hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.So is this
great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both
small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan,
whom thou hast made to play therein." KJV
5. Isaiah 27:1: "In that day the LORD with his sore and great and
strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even
leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is
in the sea. " KJV
>>
some kind of aquatic dragon IMHO
PaulJK
Okay, I take your point. Hmmm, I did think the "corner" etymology
was just suspiciously too easy.
If it is just a suffix then it does get close to Slavic-like suffixes.
"-ik/-ika/-iko/-ike", "-itz/-its/-iz", "-ek", "-off", and many others
often occur as Germanized Slavic agentizing, diminutizing, and
augmentizing sufixes. Depending on the gender, some may
result in the sound close to "-ike" or "-eke", then spelled as
"-icke/-ecke".
pjk
Yusuf B Gursey
> > Adam Funk wrote:
> >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > Yes.
>
> What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> modern Hebrew.
that's obviously modern Hebrew, as there are no whales (AFAIK) in the
Mediterranean. so the large aquatic animals in the area are the
crocodile, the hippo and the dolphin (saw them myself in
Mediterranean). the dolphin is too beign looking, so there is the
model of the crocodile (Leviathan) and hippo (Behemoth). in Turkish at
least the dolphin(yunus or yunus balIg~I "yunus fish") is associated
with the "fish" that swallowed Jonah (Yunus from arabic yu:nus). In
Arabic "dolphin" is dulfi:n . OTOH Enc. of Islam II "Yunus b. Matta"
says that Jonah (yu:nus) was swallowed by a "whale" acc. to Ibn al-
Athir, but does not give the arabic word that Ibn al-Athir uses. in
modern arabic it's normally ba:li:n , but Hu:t "fish, large fish" is
also sometimes used (Hu:t is the usual word for "fish" in Maghrebi
Arabic, whereas in East it is samak ; al-Hu:t is also the name of the
constellation Pisces). the constellation Cetus ((the Whale) is just
rendered as qayTas or qi:Tu:s.
Yusuf B Gursey
also:
<<
Leviathan as an animal
In the book of Job, both Behemoth and Leviathan are listed alongside a
number of other animals that are clearly mundane, such as goats,
eagles, and hawks, leading some Christian scholars to surmise that
Behemoth and Leviathan may also be mundane creatures. Some propose
Leviathan was a Nile crocodile. Like the Leviathan, the Nile crocodile
is aquatic, scaly, and possesses fierce teeth. Job 41:18 states that
Leviathan's eyes "are like the eyelids of the morning". Others suggest
that the Leviathan is an exaggerated account of a whale. However, Job
also goes on to describe Leviathan as "breathing fire".
....
Leviathan also appears in the Book of Enoch, giving the following
description of this monster's origins there mentioned as being female,
as opposed to the male Behemoth:
And that day will two monsters be parted, one monster, a female named
Leviathan in order to dwell in the abyss of the ocean over the
fountains of water; and (the other), a male called Behemoth, which
holds his chest in an invisible desert whose name is Dundayin, east of
the garden of Eden. - 1 Enoch 60:7-8
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > Yes.
>
> > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > modern Hebrew.
>
> that's obviously modern Hebrew, as there are no whales (AFAIK) in the
I was wrong about this:
http://www.whaletrackers.com/whales-mediterranean-sea/
http://www.sailingissues.com/dolphins-whales.html
but they are quite uncommon.
> Mediterranean. so the large aquatic animals in the area are the
> crocodile, the hippo and the dolphin (saw them myself in
> Mediterranean). the dolphin is too beign looking, so there is the
even in the Sea of Marmara (their numbers there have decreased, I saw
a small - young ? - dolphin carcass washed ashore in the Bosphorus.
> model of the crocodile (Leviathan) and hippo (Behemoth). in Turkish at
> least the dolphin(yunus or yunus balIg~I "yunus fish") is associated
> with the "fish" that swallowed Jonah (Yunus from arabic yu:nus). In
> Arabic "dolphin" is dulfi:n . OTOH Enc. of Islam II "Yunus b. Matta"
> says that Jonah (yu:nus) was swallowed by a "whale" acc. to Ibn al-
> Athir, but does not give the arabic word that Ibn al-Athir uses. in
> modern arabic it's normally ba:li:n , but Hu:t "fish, large fish" is
> also sometimes used (Hu:t is the usual word for "fish" in Maghrebi
> Arabic, whereas in East it is samak ; al-Hu:t is also the name of the
> constellation Pisces). the constellation Cetus ((the Whale) is just
> rendered as qayTas or qi:Tu:s.
this is just a proper name (no definite article for a definite thing).
ba:li:n sounds like a recent loan so I think Ibn al-'Athi:r (1160 –
1233), born in what is now a Syrian border town in Turkey, an Arab
historian, used Hu:t
Peter T. Daniels
> On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > Yes.
>
> > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > modern Hebrew.
>
> The International standard Bible encyclopedia says under "Leviathan"
Which edition? They are very, very different works over the decades.
> by G. P. Hugenberger that it is liwya:*th*a:n; cf. Heb. liwya:
> "wreath"; Arab. lawa: {lawa"} "to twist" . {BDB says it may be a
> loanword.}
> ... << Job 41:1-34 (MT 40:25-41-26) the most extended description of
> Leviathan, suggests to many the crocodile (so RSVmg.). >>
>
> under "Behemoth" it says << Heb. b&he:mo:*th* (Job 40:15). Apparently
> the intensive plural of b&he:ma:, "beast". The same form
> b&he:mo:*th* occurs in other passages ... where it is not rendered
> "behemoth" but "beasts" The reference in Job is to some marsh-dwelling
> mammoth such as Hippopotamus amphibius which inhabits the Nile and
> other African rivers. In hte Apocyrpha the name denotes the male
> counterpart of Leviathan (2 Esd. 6:49, 52), while in the Targum on Ps.
> 50:10 it alludes to the "ox o fthe open field. >>
>
> "The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible" says under "Leviathan" by
1962. When consulting the IDB, always look in the Supplement first
(1976).
But (for English Bible reference works) the IDB and IDBSupp were
pretty much superseded by the Anchor Bible Dictionary in 1992 (IIRC).
Peter T. Daniels
The text of Job is probably the most uncertain in the entire TaNaKh,
and it is irresponsible to quote the King James Version in a scholarly
context.
> 4. Psalms 104:24-26: "O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom
> hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.So is this
> great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both
> small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan,
> whom thou hast made to play therein." KJV
>
> 5. Isaiah 27:1: "In that day the LORD with his sore and great and
> strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even
> leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is
> in the sea. " KJV
>
> >>
>
> some kind of aquatic dragon IMHO
What does that mean? That you equate a Levantine mythic beast with a
North European mythic beast?
Yusuf B Gursey
well, this is Wikipedia, so I agree with you that it's scholarliness
should be taken with a grain of salt! the OP referred to Wikipedia, so
I looked up what it says.
>
> > 4. Psalms 104:24-26: "O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom
> > hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.So is this
> > great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both
> > small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan,
> > whom thou hast made to play therein." KJV
>
> > 5. Isaiah 27:1: "In that day the LORD with his sore and great and
> > strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even
> > leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is
> > in the sea. " KJV
>
> > >>
>
> > some kind of aquatic dragon IMHO
>
> What does that mean? That you equate a Levantine mythic beast with a
> North European mythic beast?
"His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal"
indicates that a reptilian creature is refered to, "Out of his mouth
go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils
goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth
coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth." indicates he breathes
fire. so this fits with the conventional conception of "dragon".
"There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to
play therein." indicates that it is aquatic.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 5, 12:04 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > > Yes.
>
> > > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > > modern Hebrew.
>
> > The International standard Bible encyclopedia says under "Leviathan"
>
> Which edition? They are very, very different works over the decades.
>
1979 . that's the edition available in my library.
>
>
>
>
> > by G. P. Hugenberger that it is liwya:*th*a:n; cf. Heb. liwya:
> > "wreath"; Arab. lawa: {lawa"} "to twist" . {BDB says it may be a
> > loanword.}
> > ... << Job 41:1-34 (MT 40:25-41-26) the most extended description of
> > Leviathan, suggests to many the crocodile (so RSVmg.). >>
>
> > under "Behemoth" it says << Heb. b&he:mo:*th* (Job 40:15). Apparently
> > the intensive plural of b&he:ma:, "beast". The same form
> > b&he:mo:*th* occurs in other passages ... where it is not rendered
> > "behemoth" but "beasts" The reference in Job is to some marsh-dwelling
> > mammoth such as Hippopotamus amphibius which inhabits the Nile and
> > other African rivers. In hte Apocyrpha the name denotes the male
> > counterpart of Leviathan (2 Esd. 6:49, 52), while in the Targum on Ps.
> > 50:10 it alludes to the "ox o fthe open field. >>
>
> > "The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible" says under "Leviathan" by
>
> 1962. When consulting the IDB, always look in the Supplement first
> (1976).
OK.
>
> But (for English Bible reference works) the IDB and IDBSupp were
> pretty much superseded by the Anchor Bible Dictionary in 1992 (IIRC).
>
will do.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 5, 2:09 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > > Yes.
>
> > > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > > modern Hebrew.
>
> > that's obviously modern Hebrew, as there are no whales (AFAIK) in the
>
> I was wrong about this:
>
> http://www.whaletrackers.com/whales-mediterranean-sea/
>
> http://www.whale-watch.org/
>
> http://www.sailingissues.com/dolphins-whales.html
>
> but they are quite uncommon.
the lack of a common word for "whale" in Classical arabic and Biblical
Hebrew strongly suggest to me that whales were quite unkown to the
Canaanites and Arabs. as for Leviathan, the description does indeed
fit the description of the Nile Crocodile better (fictionalized, of
course) but the reference to ships may sugget that it was confused
with rare sightings of whales.
as for Arabic, one must also consider the Red Sea. apparently there
are whales, but rare:
http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/ask99/0001.html
Subject: Re: Red Sea-Whales?
Dagmar Fertl (Dagmar...@mms.gov)
Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:21:00 -0500
...
Whales have indeed been reported for the Red Sea. Baleen whales like
the sei
whale and the humpback whale have been sighted there. I would suspect
that
there are more whales that make their way into that sea, but just have
not been
reported there. Toothed whales like the short-finned pilot whale,
false killer
whale, Indo-Pacific hump-backed dolphin, rough-toothed dolphin,
Risso's dolphin,
bottlenose dolphin, striped dolphin, and common dolphin also occur in
the Red
Sea, as does the dugong (a relative of the manatee).
>
> > Mediterranean. so the large aquatic animals in the area are the
> > crocodile, the hippo and the dolphin (saw them myself in
> > Mediterranean). the dolphin is too beign looking, so there is the
>
> even in the Sea of Marmara (their numbers there have decreased, I saw
> a small - young ? - dolphin carcass washed ashore in the Bosphorus.
>
> > model of the crocodile (Leviathan) and hippo (Behemoth). in Turkish at
> > least the dolphin(yunus or yunus balIg~I "yunus fish") is associated
> > with the "fish" that swallowed Jonah (Yunus from arabic yu:nus). In
> > Arabic "dolphin" is dulfi:n . OTOH Enc. of Islam II "Yunus b. Matta"
> > says that Jonah (yu:nus) was swallowed by a "whale" acc. to Ibn al-
> > Athir, but does not give the arabic word that Ibn al-Athir uses. in
> > modern arabic it's normally ba:li:n , but Hu:t "fish, large fish" is
> > also sometimes used (Hu:t is the usual word for "fish" in Maghrebi
> > Arabic, whereas in East it is samak ; al-Hu:t is also the name of the
> > constellation Pisces). the constellation Cetus ((the Whale) is just
> > rendered as qayTas or qi:Tu:s.
>
> this is just a proper name (no definite article for a definite thing).
> ba:li:n sounds like a recent loan so I think Ibn al-'Athi:r (1160 –
> 1233), born in what is now a Syrian border town in Turkey, an Arab
> historian, used Hu:t
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Are the same publishers coming out with a Hebrew version of "Moby
> > > Dick"? :-) Let the Bible Code people loose on that!
>
> > > Dennis
-
Yusuf B Gursey
> > Adam Funk wrote:
> >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > Yes.
>
> What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> modern Hebrew.
Here is the view of Encyclopaedia Judaica (2007; Online) "Leviathan",
which jsutifies the association with whales and also points out that
it was originally serpentine in form (see my previous posts about its
etymologically meaning "coiled one"). BTW Azhi Dahhaka of Iranian /
Zoroastrian lore, alluded to in a previous reference (IDB) is
serpentine (in the Sassanian and New Persion versions he is human with
serpents sprouting from his shoulders):
<<
LEVIATHAN
LEVIATHAN (Heb. לִוְיָתָן, livyatan; Ugaritic ltn, presumably
pronounced lōtanu, or possibly, lītanu). In the Bible and talmudic
literature the leviathan denotes various marine animals, some real,
others legendary, and others again both real and legendary. The word
leviathan seems to derive from the root lwy, "to coil," which is
further confirmation of its serpentine form. In the Bible it is used
interchangeably with several other sea monsters – tannin ("dragon"),
rahav, and yam ("sea"; of which the last-named alternates with neharim
("flood") in Hab. 3:8) – all of whom are represented as supernatural
enemies of God. This hostility directly reflects a myth widely known
in pre-biblical sources of a primordial combat between the creator
deity and the forces of the sea, personifying chaos, which the former
must overcome to create and control the universe (see *Creation ). The
Hittites knew it as the struggle between the dragon Illuyankas and the
mortal Hupashiyas (Pritchard, Texts, 125–6; COS I, 150–51). In
Mesopotamia it appears in several forms, of which the most famous is
the battle of Marduk and Tiamat in the creation epic (COS I, 390–402).
More relevant is a cylinder seal from Tell Asmar of the 24th century
B.C.E., which pictures two men fighting a seven-headed serpent
(reproduced in IDB 3, 116). The leviathan itself may have been found
in a Mesopotamian incantation designed "to revive a serpent" (see van
Dijk in bibliography). The closest Near Eastern parallel to the
biblical materials, however, and probably their actual source, is the
Ugaritic myth(s) of Baal and Anat pitted against various sea monsters,
one of which is named Lotan (Pritchard, op. cit.; COS I, 265). Not
only is this merely another form of the name leviathan, but the same
epithets used of leviathan are here prefigured of Lotan, e.g., btn
brh. and btn ʿqltn as compared with naḥash bariah and naḥash
ʿaqallaton of Isaiah 27:1.
[Peter Machinist]
In Bible and Talmud
In the Bible Leviathan is a multi-headed (Ps. 74:14) sea serpent,
appearing in Isaiah 27:1; Psalms 74:14; 104:26; Job 3:8; and 41:1ff.
The detailed description in Job (40:25–32) applies to the *crocodile ,
although a rabbi, maintaining that the reference is to the leviathan –
the legendary animal prepared for the righteous in the hereafter –
concludes that "the leviathan is a permitted fish," and regards its
maginnim (Job 41:7) as scales, one of the characteristics of a
permitted fish (Tosef., Hul. 3:27). On the other hand, tannin, which
generally denotes the crocodile, sometimes applies to the whale, as
would appear from Genesis 1:21. The verse: "Even the tannin [keri:
tannim] draw out
Page 697 |
the breast, they give suck to their young ones" (Lam. 4:3) may refer
to the whale, the female of which suckles its young (according to
another view, the reference is to the *jackal ). The whale is intended
in the literal meaning of the verse describing the great sea: "There
go the ships; there is leviathan, whom Thou hast formed to sport
therein" (Ps. 104:26). At times the long-headed whale (Physeter
catodon), which is as much as 20 meters (about 65 ft.) long and feeds
on large fish and even sharks, reaches the shores of Israel. This may
be the basis of the biblical story about "a great fish" that swallowed
Jonah (2:1). On rare occasions the largest of the whales, Sibbaldus
(Balaenoptera) musculus, appears off the Israel coast after entering
the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar.
By tannin and leviathan the Bible also intends animals which "in days
of old" are said to have rebelled against the Creator, who thereupon
destroyed them (Ps. 74:13–14; cf. Isa. 51:10; Job 3:8; 7:12) – similar
to the Ugaritic myths mentioned above. Relics of the bones or
footprints of prehistoric reptiles may have been found by the ancients
(such footprints have been discovered at Bet Zayit in the vicinity of
Jerusalem) and these may have served as the inspiration for the myth
of the destruction of these gigantic creatures. Some of these verses
were used as a basis for the well-known aggadah about the leviathan
and the shor ha-bar ("the wild ox") intended for the righteous in the
hereafter. The passage: "There is leviathan, whom Thou hast formed to
sport with" has been homiletically interpreted to mean that God sports
with the leviathan (Av. Zar. 3b), while the descriptions of the
*behemoth and the leviathan in Job (40:15–41:26) have been construed
as referring to the fight between these animals, after which the
Almighty will prepare from them a feast for the righteous (BB 74b–75a;
Lev. R. 13:3; 22:10). This struggle is picturesquely depicted in the
*Akdamut , the Aramaic piyyut which is said on Pentecost and which
describes the great reward in store for the righteous. In later
popular works the words leviathan and shor ha-bar became synonyms for
the reward of the righteous in the world to come.
[Jehuda Feliks]
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
I. Broydé and K. Kohler, in: JE, 8 (1904), 37–39; H. Wallace, in: BA,
11 (1948), 61–68; T.H. Gaster, in: IDB, 1 (1962), 708; 3 (1962), 116;
M.D. Cassuto, in: EM, 4 (1962), 485–6; C.H. Gordon, in: A. Altmann
(ed.), Biblical Motifs (1966), 1–9; J. van Dijk, in: Orientalia, 38
(1969), 541; Lewysohn, Zool, 155–8 (nos. 178–80), 355 (no. 505); H.L.
Ginsberg, Kitvei Ugarit (1936); M.D. Cassuto, Ha-Elah Anat (19532); J.
Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 51, 94, 108; Gutman, in:
HUCA, 39 (1968), 219–30. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Uehlinger, in: DDD, 511–
15, incl. bibl.; J. Day, in: ABD, 4:295–96.
Source Citation: Machinist, Peter and Jehuda Feliks. "Leviathan."
Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol.
12. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 696-697. Gale
Virtual Reference Library. Gale.
Adam Funk
I don't think he personally is equating them, or believing in dragons.
"The notion that all monsters, hobgoblins and evil progenies were
descended from Cain was a medieval commonplace" according to the notes
in _Beowulf_, edited and translated by Michael Swanton, 1978.
--
When Elaine turned 11, her mother sent her to train under
Donald Knuth in his mountain hideaway. [XKCD 342]
Trond Engen
> Leviathan as an animal
>
> In the book of Job, both Behemoth and Leviathan are listed alongside
> a number of other animals that are clearly mundane, such as goats,
> eagles, and hawks, leading some Christian scholars to surmise that
> Behemoth and Leviathan may also be mundane creatures. Some propose
> Leviathan was a Nile crocodile. Like the Leviathan, the Nile
> crocodile is aquatic, scaly, and possesses fierce teeth. Job 41:18
> states that Leviathan's eyes "are like the eyelids of the morning".
> Others suggest that the Leviathan is an exaggerated account of a
> whale. However, Job also goes on to describe Leviathan as "breathing
> fire".
>
> ....
>
> Leviathan also appears in the Book of Enoch, giving the following
> description of this monster's origins there mentioned as being
> female, as opposed to the male Behemoth:
>
> And that day will two monsters be parted, one monster, a female named
> Leviathan in order to dwell in the abyss of the ocean over the
> fountains of water; and (the other), a male called Behemoth, which
> holds his chest in an invisible desert whose name is Dundayin, east
> of the garden of Eden. - 1 Enoch 60:7-8
Does it have to be a real animal behind the myth? This seems like a
straightforward divison of the forces of chaos in the cosmology of a
people living on a narrow strip of land between the desert and the sea.
Without knowing any more, and I certainly don't, I'd think that the
actual description of the creatures might have varied quite a bit over
the centuries, or from city to city, as new fierce and exotic beasts
became known and new generations of storytellers added their own twist
to the myth, while the central dichotomy made enough sense as an
existensial metaphor to survive.
(And note how the desert was moved out into a mythic east not to
conflict with the originally Babylonian myth of Eden.)
--
Trond Engen
Yusuf B Gursey
> Yusuf B Gursey:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Leviathan as an animal
>
> > In the book of Job, both Behemoth and Leviathan are listed alongside
> > a number of other animals that are clearly mundane, such as goats,
> > eagles, and hawks, leading some Christian scholars to surmise that
> > Behemoth and Leviathan may also be mundane creatures. Some propose
> > Leviathan was a Nile crocodile. Like the Leviathan, the Nile
> > crocodile is aquatic, scaly, and possesses fierce teeth. Job 41:18
> > states that Leviathan's eyes "are like the eyelids of the morning".
> > Others suggest that the Leviathan is an exaggerated account of a
> > whale. However, Job also goes on to describe Leviathan as "breathing
> > fire".
>
> > ....
>
> > Leviathan also appears in the Book of Enoch, giving the following
> > description of this monster's origins there mentioned as being
> > female, as opposed to the male Behemoth:
>
> > And that day will two monsters be parted, one monster, a female named
> > Leviathan in order to dwell in the abyss of the ocean over the
> > fountains of water; and (the other), a male called Behemoth, which
> > holds his chest in an invisible desert whose name is Dundayin, east
> > of the garden of Eden. - 1 Enoch 60:7-8
>
> Does it have to be a real animal behind the myth? This seems like a
well, since in Modern Hebrew it denotes a real animal it seems an
appropriate question as to how much this accords with the Biblical
description. besides, mythical animals are usually based on real
onesor composites of real ones, including as some maintain, ancient
fossil finds. in China the fossil connection is especially obvious, as
fossils, especially dinosaur fossils are called andcollected as
"dragonbones". in modern Chinese lung "dragon" is used for zoological
"dinosaur" as well.
> straightforward divison of the forces of chaos in the cosmology of a
> people living on a narrow strip of land between the desert and the sea.
> Without knowing any more, and I certainly don't, I'd think that the
> actual description of the creatures might have varied quite a bit over
> the centuries, or from city to city, as new fierce and exotic beasts
> became known and new generations of storytellers added their own twist
> to the myth, while the central dichotomy made enough sense as an
> existensial metaphor to survive.
>
> (And note how the desert was moved out into a mythic east not to
> conflict with the originally Babylonian myth of Eden.)
>
> --
> Trond Engen- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Trond Engen
> On Dec 5, 5:41 pm, Trond Engen <trond...@engen.priv.no> wrote:
>
>> Yusuf B Gursey:
>>
>>> Leviathan as an animal
>>> In the book of Job, both Behemoth and Leviathan are listed
>>> alongside a number of other animals that are clearly mundane, such
>>> as goats, eagles, and hawks, leading some Christian scholars to
>>> surmise that Behemoth and Leviathan may also be mundane creatures.
>>> Some propose Leviathan was a Nile crocodile. Like the Leviathan,
>>> the Nile crocodile is aquatic, scaly, and possesses fierce teeth.
>>> Job 41:18 states that Leviathan's eyes "are like the eyelids of the
>>> morning". Others suggest that the Leviathan is an exaggerated
>>> account of a whale. However, Job also goes on to describe Leviathan
>>> as "breathing fire".
>>>
>>> Leviathan also appears in the Book of Enoch, giving the following
>>> description of this monster's origins there mentioned as being
>>> female, as opposed to the male Behemoth:
>>>
>>> And that day will two monsters be parted, one monster, a female
>>> named Leviathan in order to dwell in the abyss of the ocean over
>>> the fountains of water; and (the other), a male called Behemoth,
>>> which holds his chest in an invisible desert whose name is
>>> Dundayin, east of the garden of Eden. - 1 Enoch 60:7-8
>>
>> Does it have to be a real animal behind the myth? [...]
>
> well, since in Modern Hebrew it denotes a real animal it seems an
> appropriate question as to how much this accords with the Biblical
> description. besides, mythical animals are usually based on real
> onesor composites of real ones, including as some maintain, ancient
> fossil finds. in China the fossil connection is especially obvious,
> as fossils, especially dinosaur fossils are called andcollected as
> "dragonbones". in modern Chinese lung "dragon" is used for zoological
> "dinosaur" as well.
I certainly agree that each of the various descriptions will be based on
stories of encounters with one or more actual creatures. Or the relics
thereof. What I meant to suggest is that these images are on the layer
of interpretation, or perhaps enactment, constantly evolving, while the
myth of the two creatures of chaos is the core of local cosmology.
--
Trond Engen
Yusuf B Gursey
OK. but I am more interested in the "crypto-zoological" aspect.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > Yes.
>
> > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > modern Hebrew.
>
> that's obviously modern Hebrew, as there are no whales (AFAIK) in the
> Mediterranean. so the large aquatic animals in the area are the
> crocodile, the hippo and the dolphin (saw them myself in
> Mediterranean). the dolphin is too beign looking, so there is the
> model of the crocodile (Leviathan) and hippo (Behemoth). in Turkish at
> least the dolphin(yunus or yunus balIg~I "yunus fish") is associated
> with the "fish" that swallowed Jonah (Yunus from arabic yu:nus). In
> Arabic "dolphin" is dulfi:n . OTOH Enc. of Islam II "Yunus b. Matta"
"al-mawsu:`a(t) fi: `ulu:m al-Tabi:`iyya(t)" / "Encyclopedia of the
Natural Sciences" an Arabic to English / French / Neo-Latin dictionary
(Beirut 1988) designed to standardise Arabic Biological, Astronomical
etc. terms vocalizes it as dalfi:n in distinction with other
dictionaries. it also gives the native word duxas / tuxas .
for "porpoise"dictionaries give dulfi:n again, or xinzi:r-u~l-baHr
"sea pig".
in the printed edition of Enc. of Islam II Yunus b. Matta is
alphabetized under "Yunus"
> says that Jonah (yu:nus) was swallowed by a "whale" acc. to Ibn al-
> Athir, but does not give the arabic word that Ibn al-Athir uses. in
I'm now pretty sure it is Hu:t because the entry Hūt redirects to
"Yūnus" (as well as astronomical entries)
> modern arabic it's normally ba:li:n , but Hu:t "fish, large fish" is
sorry it's ba:l ; but Cetacea (the Whale Order of Mammals) is
translated as al-Hu:tiyya:t
Yusuf B Gursey
well, it is ba:l , but I would be very inclined to think that this
again comes from Italian balina < Lat. balaena , Cl. Greek phállaina
"whale, big fish"
> 1233), born in what is now a Syrian border town in Turkey, an Arab
> historian, used Hu:t
>
see my previous post. Enc. of Islam II (printed edition, "H.ūt"
directs to "Yūnus"
DKleinecke
There is a hadith somewhere about a hungry Muslim expedition in
Muhammad's time finding a dead monster by the sea coast and eat their
full. It ends up with a horseman riding under propped up bones. The
coast would have to be the Red Sea and this is a typical dead whale
story. I haven't located the hadith yet so I can't say what Arab words
were used.
Peter T. Daniels
Why? When Ben Yehuda and his ilk set out to create a Modern Hebrew
vocabulary, they turned first to the piyyutim and other Medieval
writings (in which case the word already existed in Hebrew); second to
the TaNaKh (so that 'electricity' comes from the biblical word for
'amber'); and third to Classical Arabic (and Modern Arabic where
necessary). They objected to European loan vocabulary but ended up
with plenty of it anyway.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On 2009-12-05, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > On Dec 5, 12:43 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
> >> some kind of aquatic dragon IMHO
>
> > What does that mean? That you equate a Levantine mythic beast with a
> > North European mythic beast?
>
> I don't think he personally is equating them, or believing in dragons.
as I said, I didn't equate them, but usualy reptile like (Leviathan
has scales) mythic creatures that breath fire are usually called
dragons, in whose existence, needless to say, I don't believe in.
the exception is the Chinese dragon (I used teh conventional
transcription, probably Wide-Giles as lung, but Pinyin has lóng (so
from websites), that does not breath fire but has a magical breath:
http://www.crystalinks.com/chinadragons.html
<<
Chinese Dragons
....
The Dragon brings upon the essence of life, in the form of its
celestial breath, known to many as sheng chi. He yields life and
bestows its power in the form of the seasons, bringing water from
rain, warmth from the sunshine, wind from the seas and soil from the
Earth.
...
>>
also Chinese Dragons are normally benevolent and lucky, while
Leviathan and most North European Dragons are malevolent (or were made
so by Christianity). Chinese Dragons are aquatic like Leviathan, but
North European Dragons may be land based.
Yusuf B Gursey
fine. so we weigh in what "Ben Yahuda and his ilk" have done.
> writings (in which case the word already existed in Hebrew); second to
> the TaNaKh (so that 'electricity' comes from the biblical word for
I had read that it comes from a Biblical Hebrew word that is
translated in the LXX by elektron but with a meaning other than
"amber". I'll look up the reference in a few days. IIRC it is in a
book by Blau about modern coinages in Israeli Hebrew and Modern
Standard Arabic.
> 'amber'); and third to Classical Arabic (and Modern Arabic where
> necessary). They objected to European loan vocabulary but ended up
> with plenty of it anyway.
>
>
>
> > besides, mythical animals are usually based on real
> > onesor composites of real ones, including as some maintain, ancient
> > fossil finds. in China the fossil connection is especially obvious, as
> > fossils, especially dinosaur fossils are called andcollected as
> > "dragonbones". in modern Chinese lung "dragon" is used for zoological
> > "dinosaur" as well.
>
> > > straightforward divison of the forces of chaos in the cosmology of a
> > > people living on a narrow strip of land between the desert and the sea.
> > > Without knowing any more, and I certainly don't, I'd think that the
> > > actual description of the creatures might have varied quite a bit over
> > > the centuries, or from city to city, as new fierce and exotic beasts
> > > became known and new generations of storytellers added their own twist
> > > to the myth, while the central dichotomy made enough sense as an
> > > existensial metaphor to survive.
>
> > > (And note how the desert was moved out into a mythic east not to
> > > conflict with the originally Babylonian myth of Eden.)
-
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 5, 11:18 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > well, since in Modern Hebrew it denotes a real animal it seems an
> > > appropriate question as to how much this accords with the Biblical
> > > description.
>
> > Why? When Ben Yehuda and his ilk set out to create a Modern Hebrew
> > vocabulary, they turned first to the piyyutim and other Medieval
>
> fine. so we weigh in what "Ben Yahuda and his ilk" have done.
>
> > writings (in which case the word already existed in Hebrew); second to
> > the TaNaKh (so that 'electricity' comes from the biblical word for
>
> I had read that it comes from a Biblical Hebrew word that is
> translated in the LXX by elektron but with a meaning other than
> "amber". I'll look up the reference in a few days. IIRC it is in a
> book by Blau about modern coinages in Israeli Hebrew and Modern
> Standard Arabic.
>
it's discussed in:
Author: Blau, Joshua, 1919-
Title: The renaissance of modern Hebrew and modern standard Arabic :
parallels and differences in the revival of two semitic languages / by
Joshua Blau.
Published: Berkeley : University of California Press, c1981.
Description: vii, 260 p. ; 26 cm.
see also:
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question92065.html
<<
The word, Chashmal, appears in the Book of Ezekiel.
Lightning came out of the midst of the fire surrounded by clear
sapphire where a man like person on a throne sat in an electric eye.
If electricity is anachronistic, the word is none the less "chashmal"
which is the modern Hebrew word for electricity.
The Septuagint has "electrum" and so does the Vulgate! What ever
"chashmal" and "electrum" meant to the ancients who used these words
it can only be said that "'eyn chashmal" in Hebrew and "opsin
electrou" in Greek and "speciem electri" found in Latin in Eze. 1:27
is not "amber" as in the English translation.
>>
here's what BDB has to say:
<<
Ha*sh*mal n.[m.] etym. and exact mng. dub.; evidently some *shining*
substance; AV *amber*; supposed by Thes. q.v.) {W. Gesenius, Thesaurus
Linguae Hebraeae} and most to be a brilliant amalgam of gold and
silver, {LXX}ήλεκτον (v. Liddel and Scott s. v. 2) , {Vatican copy of
LXX} electrum; ...
Yusuf B Gursey
> here's what BDB has to say:
>
> <<
>
> Ha*sh*mal n.[m.] etym. and exact mng. dub.; evidently some *shining*
> substance; AV *amber*; supposed by Thes. q.v.) {W. Gesenius, Thesaurus
> Linguae Hebraeae} and most to be a brilliant amalgam of gold and
> silver, {LXX}ήλεκτον (v. Liddel and Scott s. v. 2) , {Vatican copy of
ήλεκτρον
> LXX} electrum; ...
>
> >>
>
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > Yes.
>
> > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > modern Hebrew.
>
> Here is the view of Encyclopaedia Judaica (2007; Online) "Leviathan",
and here is about the companion Behemoth in the same encyclopaedia:
<<
BEHEMOTH
BEHEMOTH (intensive plural of Heb. behemah, "beast"), creature
described in the Book of Job (40:15–24). It is depicted as an animal
that eats grass like an ox, is all muscles and strength, lives in the
marsh in the shade of the z.e'elim ("*jujube "), eats huge quantities
of food, and can swallow the waters of the Jordan. In the light of the
description of other animals in these chapters, it would seem that the
reference is to an existing animal, to which legendary details have
been added. In later Jewish literature, however, it appears as a
purely mythical creature. One of the mammoths fashioned on the fifth
day of creation (Targ. Yer., Gen. 1:21; II Bar. 29:4), he is the male
counterpart on land of the female *Leviathan in the sea (IV Ezra 6:49–
52). He is said to dwell in the wilderness of Dendain (or Dudain),
east of Eden (I Enoch 60:7–8), or else, by a fanciful interpretation
of Psalm 50: 10, to span "a thousand hills" (IV Ezra 6: 49–52; Lev. R.
21). At the end of the world's existence he will be slain and served,
along with his mate, at a banquet tendered to the righteous (ibid.;
Targ. Yer., Num. 9:6; PdRE 11; cf. TB, BB 75a). It has been suggested
that this reflects the Iranian belief that at the Resurrection the
righteous will obtain immortality by drinking a nectar made out of the
fat of the mythical ox Hadhayosh mixed with haoma (a plant; Bundahishn
19:13, 20:25; Dadistan-i-Denik 37:119); but it is undoubtedly inspired
also by the statement in Psalms 74:14 that God once fed the flesh of
Leviathan "to the people." The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibus)
has been identified with Behemoth. It is the largest land animal in
the Middle East, weighing up to three tons. It has powerful sinews, an
enormous head, and a wide mouth with huge molars. Once it inhabited
Erez. Israel; skeletal remains of it have been found in the vicinity
of the Yarkon River. In ancient Egypt it was a favorite quarry of
hunters and its capture with spears is often depicted.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Lewysohn, Zool, 355; Tristram, Nat Hist, 50–53; J. Feliks, Animal
World of the Bible (1962), 24.
[Jehuda Feliks /
Theodor H. Gaster]
Source Citation: Feliks, Jehuda and Theodor H. Gaster. "Behemoth."
Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol. 3.
2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 263. Gale Virtual
Reference Library. Gale.
>>
it also mentioned under "Reed", the creature lived amonst reeds:
<<
REED
...
The *Behemoth dwells "in the covert of the reed and the fens" (Job 40:
21), and is therefore called "the wild beast of the reeds" (Ps.
68:31).
...
>>
Yusuf B Gursey
anyway, the equation has been made by convention:
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=386643
Oct 16, '09, 2:05 pm
BerhaneSelassie
Junior Member Join Date: January 14, 2009
Posts: 290
Religion: Catholique
Re: tanniyn in Genesis 1: 21
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the LXX and Masoretic have different numberings for the Psalms, i
assume you mean the Hebrew numbering in the LXX
Psalm 74:13 uses tannim in the PLURAL in Hebrew this corresponds the
LXX:
σὺ ἐκραταίωσας ἐν τῇ δυνάμει σου τὴν θάλασσαν σὺ συνέτριψας τὰς
κεφαλὰς τῶν δρακόντων ἐπὶ τοῦ ὕδατος
δρακόντων is dragons "shattered the heads of the dragons upon the
water."
Both the Hebrew and Greek of Psalm 74:13 say dragons (pl.)
Where as Revelation 12:3 is a dragon (singular) So it does not seem to
be the same dragon.
HOWEVER, if you read thenext verse, Psalms 74:14:
Thou didst crush the heads of leviathan, Thou gavest him to be food to
the folk inhabiting the wilderness.
the word is לִוְיָתָן leviathan (as we would say) in the Hebrew, and
the LXX δράκοντος, which is singular dragon.
This seems to better match Revelation 12:3 since the dragon (singular)
has heads (plural).
Revelation 12:3 has a δράκων (dragon) with seven κεφαλὰς (heads).
Psalm 74:14 has a δράκοντος (dragon) with κεφαλὰς (heads)
Though it seems with most copies of 74:14 it says "heads", but there
is at least one variant in the LXX that says "thn kefalhn" the head
(singular). But the Hebrew uses the plural rashey (rashi) for heads.
Franz Gnaedinger
> 21), and is therefore called "the wild beast of the reeds" (Ps.
> 68:31).
The myth of Behemoth might well be the local version
of a general myth that occurs as dragon of Lannion in
Armorica, on the Breton coast, Britanny, opposite of
Plymouth and Exeter in southwestern Britain, and as
the rhinoceros of the early Indus Valley, see my recent
messages in the Murukan thread and in my Magdalenian
thread. The same beast, rhinoceos or dragon, could have
become a hippopotame in the Levant. The dragon of
Lannion had the shape of a fully grown bull, and Behemoth,
according to the above lines, "eats grass like an ox." In
my reconstruction of the founding epic of the Indus Valley
the rhinoceros drank all the water and made the land go
dry, now Behemoth "can swallow the waters of Jordan" ...
The rhinoceros of the Indus Valley and the dragon of Lannion
were both present in the constellation we call Bootes and
whose orange glowing Arcturus eye is looking toward the
Heze point of the Spica lance of the hero god of the Indus
Valley or the sword Calibrus of king Arthur. Now Arthur's fight
with the dragon must have occured in early January, when the
Bootes dragon rises from the northeastern horizon (not from
the northwestern horizon, as I wrongly said in my messages
from earlier this morning), in horizontal position, the Arcturus
eye on the right side and the Nekkar stump of a tail on the
left side, the meteor shower of the Quadrantides radiating
from the rear end of the demon, accounting for the tail
twisting in a spiral according to the Brazaz Breiz. A dweller
of the Levant would have seen the very same heavenly picture
on the northeastern horizon, especially near or on the shore,
Leviathan rising in Bootes in early January at midnight, and
as the demon rose from the sea when seen from the shore,
it could easily have been combined with the memory of a tsunami.
Might the name of Leviathan be akin to French lever 'to rise' ?
Yusuf B Gursey
now that is called equating a North European myth with a myth in the
Levant!
no, as I posted it is connected with a semitic verb "to coil"
Franz Gnaedinger
Confirmation comes from the Wikipedia page on Behemoth:
the animal's tail moves like a cedar, comparing the meteor
shower of the Quarantides with the needle-like leaves of the
cedar, and also a sword is involved in the story: only his Maker
can draw the sword against him, as only Arthur could pull the
sword out of the rock and fight the dragon of Lannion, and only
the hypothetical hero god of the Indus Valley could handle the
Spica Heze lance and cope with the rhinoceros. We have then
a universal myth reaching back into the Ice Age, surviving in
a variety of local versions, sometimes implying moral issues.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> now that is called equating a North European myth with a myth in the
> Levant!
Wishing that Saul Levin could read my lines. You know, we
all have a lot in common, we also share very ancient myths.
> no, as I posted it is connected with a semitic verb "to coil"
Thank you for the correction. But could 'Levant' be akin to
French lever 'to rise'? the eastern shore of the Mediterranean
where sun and moon and the stars rise above the horizon?
Yusuf B Gursey
the antecedent of Leviathan is Ugaritic <ltn> *lo:ta:n / lawta:n /
li:ta:n which was a serpentine mythical creature, consistent with the
rather straightforward and generally accepted Semitic etymology from
"to coil". no need to invoke French.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotan
Lotan or Lawtan is the seven-headed sea serpent or dragon of Ugaritic
myths
>
> Confirmation comes from the Wikipedia page on Behemoth:
Behemoth is a different legendary creature with a different etymology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth
<< The word is most likely a plural form of בהמה (bəhēmāh), meaning
beast or large animal. >>
cf. in BDB arabic bahi:ma(t) "beast, animal, cattle"; istabhama "to be
impeded in speech" ; Ethiopic bəhama "to be dumb"
nothing to do with rising or meteor showers either.
Yusuf B Gursey
yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant
<<
Levant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...
Etymology
Inhabitants of the Levant, late nineteenth century.The term Levant,
which first appeared in English in 1497, originally meant a wider
sense of "Mediterranean lands east of Venetia", as in French soleil
levant "rising Sun" — from the verb lever, "to rise", from Latin
levare "to raise". It thus referred to the Eastern direction of the
rising Sun from the perspective of those who first used it and has
analogues in other languages, notably Morgenland – or a closely
related word meaning morning land – in most Germanic languages.
...
>>
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> the antecedent of Leviathan is Ugaritic <ltn> *lo:ta:n / lawta:n /
> li:ta:n which was a serpentine mythical creature, consistent with the
> rather straightforward and generally accepted Semitic etymology from
> "to coil". no need to invoke French.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotan
>
> Lotan or Lawtan is the seven-headed sea serpent or dragon of Ugaritic
> myths
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth
>
> impeded in speech" ; Ethiopic bəhama "to be dumb"
>
> nothing to do with rising or meteor showers either.
Here is the description of the Lannion dragon from the
Barzaz Breiz in the translation of Jan Jaczek, inserted
in brackets my astronomical explanations, linking the
dragon to the stars and the rhinoceros demon of the
Indus Valley:
Now the dragon came out (rose above the horizon)
of its lair, vile and steaming. IIt had a single red eye
on its forehead (Arcturus a red star, glowing orange)
and its body was covered in green scales (analogous
to the bony plates of the rhinoceros). It had the form
of a fully grown bull, but its tail was twisted into a spiral
like an iron screw (reference to the meteor shower of
the Quadrantides radiating from the Nekkar end of
Bootes in early January) and thin needle-sharp horns
at every joint, to deter any attacker from coming too
close (alpha pi zaetha Bootis and alpha aeta tau
ypsilon Bootis, the alpha star being Arcturus, and
the aetha star Mufrid).
Calibrus the magic sword of Arthur would then have
been Spica Heze in Virgo. The sword is also mentioned
in the case of Behemoth: only his Master could raise
the sword against him. The dragon of Lannion has
a twisted tail that spirals like an iron screw, while
Behemoth has a tail that "moves like a cedar,"
the needle-like leaves of the cedar spiralling around
long shoots. Exactly the same spiralling movement
symbolizing the meteor shower of the Quadrantides
radiating from the Nekkar end of Bootes that was the
rhinoceros demon of the early Indus Valley, the dragon
of Lannion in Armorica, and Behemoth in the Levant,
as I now dare state in such a confident manner.
Joachim Pense
> Joachim Pense wrote:
>> PaulJK (in sci.lang):
>>> DKleinecke wrote:
>>>> On Dec 2, 8:56 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Dec 2, 8:25 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>>>> I am inclined to leave YHW(H) as a proper name and not try to explain
>>>>>> it.
>>>>>
>>>>> usually propernames have an etymology as well.
>>>>
>>>> I accept that - but their etymologies are unlike other etymologies. My
>>>> first name "David" has an etymology - "borrowed from Old Hebrew
>>>> probably meaning beloved" but my last name has no known etymology.
>>>> Kleinecke follows a well-known pattern - Meinecke, Reinecke and so on
>>>
>>> I don't understand that. Are you saying that you don't know
>>> what "klein", "mein", "rein", and "ecke" mean in German?
>>> A farming settlement with a small allotment of land in a remote
>>> place might have easily got called Kleinecke.
>>> I can't think of any names looking more Germanic.
>>
>> I don't believe the "ecke" part. A diminutive -ke sounds more plausible
>> to me than a noun meaning "corner". Alan suggests its Hessian; maybe, I
>> thought it was further north.
>> Joqdhim
>
> Okay, I take your point. Hmmm, I did think the "corner" etymology
> was just suspiciously too easy.
>
> If it is just a suffix then it does get close to Slavic-like suffixes.
There are some spelling pronounciations of slavic names with ck [tsk]
pronounced [k] in German. Example "Kubicki" (local politician), who is
regularly called as in "Kubikki". Others have Germanised spellings (I knew
someone called "Dubitzki").
Joachim
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 5, 11:37 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 5, 11:18 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > well, since in Modern Hebrew it denotes a real animal it seems an
> > > > appropriate question as to how much this accords with the Biblical
> > > > description.
>
> > > Why? When Ben Yehuda and his ilk set out to create a Modern Hebrew
> > > vocabulary, they turned first to the piyyutim and other Medieval
>
> > fine. so we weigh in what "Ben Yahuda and his ilk" have done.
>
> > > writings (in which case the word already existed in Hebrew); second to
> > > the TaNaKh (so that 'electricity' comes from the biblical word for
>
> > I had read that it comes from a Biblical Hebrew word that is
> > translated in the LXX by elektron but with a meaning other than
> > "amber". I'll look up the reference in a few days. IIRC it is in a
> > book by Blau about modern coinages in Israeli Hebrew and Modern
> > Standard Arabic.
>
> it's discussed in:
>
> Author: Blau, Joshua, 1919-
> Title: The renaissance of modern Hebrew and modern standard Arabic :
> parallels and differences in the revival of two semitic languages / by
> Joshua Blau.
> Published: Berkeley : University of California Press, c1981.
> Description: vii, 260 p. ; 26 cm.
on p. 62 - 63
<<
... The famous Hebrew poet Yehuda Leb Gordon (1830 - 1892) a younger
contemporary of al-T.aht.awi: {who used the perisan word for "amber"
to mean "electricity" in arabic}, at about the same time introduced
into modern Hebrew h.ashmal to mean "electricity", for approximately
the same reasons, although in a more complicated way: H.ashmal occurs
in the Bible thre times (Ezekhiel i 4, 27, viii 2) and is translated
by the Septaugint and Vulgate by e:lektron and electrum repstively,
presumably denoting an alloy of gold and silver (one of the two
meanings of Greek e:lektron, the other being amber). Therefore,
{reference to Ben Yehuda} Gorsdon proposed using h.ashmal in the sense
of electricity, and hios proposal has been accepted.
Gordon, incidentally, had a second proposal for h.ashmal, one that
exhibits the penchant for plays on words. {reference to Ben Yehuda}
The proper noun Maher-shalal-h.ash-baz occurs in Isaiah viii 1, h.ash-
baz presumably meaning "the booty is quick." Accordingly Gordon
proposed considering h.ashmal as a compound word h.ash-mal, h.ash
meaning is quick and mal, as if derived from milla:, meaning word,
that is "the word is quick" and using it for telephone or telegraph,
on which (by electricity, i.e., by h.ashmal) owrds quickly travel.
Luckily this second proposal was no{t} accepted.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Dec 5, 7:55 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 5, 12:04 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Dec 4, 9:27 pm, Dennis <tsalagi18NOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > > > > Adam Funk wrote:
> > > > >> Thomas Hobbes' _Leviathan_ has recently been translated into Hebrew.
> > > > >> I can't read Hebrew, but I'm curious: is the word used on the cover
> > > > >> (illustrated in the page linked below) the same as the one used for
> > > > >> the biblical leviathan?
>
> > > > >>http://www.shalemcenter.org.il/publications.php?did=22&aid=8704ed01422
> > > > >> 8edf74ebf74b14d223715
>
> > > > > Yes.
>
> > > > What was 'leviathan' "really" supposed to refer to in ancient Hebrew?
> > > > "Whale" or any sea monster in general? Wiki says it just means "whale" in
> > > > modern Hebrew.
>
>
> > Which edition? They are very, very different works over the decades.
>
> 1979 . that's the edition available in my library.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > by G. P. Hugenberger that it is liwya:*th*a:n; cf. Heb. liwya:
> > > "wreath"; Arab. lawa: {lawa"} "to twist" . {BDB says it may be a
> > > loanword.}
> > > ... << Job 41:1-34 (MT 40:25-41-26) the most extended description of
> > > Leviathan, suggests to many the crocodile (so RSVmg.). >>
>
> > > under "Behemoth" it says << Heb. b&he:mo:*th* (Job 40:15). Apparently
> > > the intensive plural of b&he:ma:, "beast". The same form
> > > b&he:mo:*th* occurs in other passages ... where it is not rendered
> > > "behemoth" but "beasts" The reference in Job is to some marsh-dwelling
> > > mammoth such as Hippopotamus amphibius which inhabits the Nile and
> > > other African rivers. In hte Apocyrpha the name denotes the male
> > > counterpart of Leviathan (2 Esd. 6:49, 52), while in the Targum on Ps.
> > > 50:10 it alludes to the "ox o fthe open field. >>
>
> > > "The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible" says under "Leviathan" by
>
> > 1962. When consulting the IDB, always look in the Supplement first
> > (1976).
>
> OK.
>
neither "Leviathan" nor "behemoth" are under the Supplement entries.
>
>
> > But (for English Bible reference works) the IDB and IDBSupp were
> > pretty much superseded by the Anchor Bible Dictionary in 1992 (IIRC).
>
> will do.
>
>
<<
LEVIATHAN [Heb liwyātān]. The name of a mythological sea serpent or
dragon, personifying the chaos waters, mentioned in the Ugaritic
texts, in the OT, and in later Jewish literature. Etymologically the
name means "twisting one," as befitts a sea serpent.
In the Ugaritic texts the name appears as ltn (KTU 1.5.1.1 = CTA
5.1.1) which has been traditionally been vocalized as Lōtān, but it
has been persuausively argued by J. A. Emerton (1982) that the correct
rendering should be Lītān. In this Ugaritic passage (lines (1-4)
Mot.alludes to Baal's defeat of Lītān as follows, "Because you smote
Lītān the twisting serpent, (and) made an end of the crooked serpent,
the tyrant with seven heads, the skies will become hot (and) will
shine. ...
In view of a number of references in the OT to the defeat of the
chaos monster at the time of creation (e.g., Leviathan in Pslam 74 and
Rahab in Psalm 89), the question is raised whether the Canaanites
likewise envisaged the dragon conflict as taking place at that
time. ... The Ugaritic allusions to the defeat of Lītān and other
monsters, mentioned above, may therefore have had a creation context.
...
... What is striking is that the description of Leviathan as "the
twisting serpent . . . the crooked serpent"in Isa 27:1 is remarkabely
close to the terminology used to describe Lītān in the Ugaritic text
cited above.
In Job 40:25-41, 26(-Eng 41:1-34) part of the second divine speech
is a description of Leviathan. Many commentators have believed,
following the view of S. Bochart expressed in 1663, that Leviathan is
here the crocodile, and similarly that Behemoth in Job 40:15-24 is the
hippopotamus. However, good reasons can be put forward against
Leviathan's equation here with the crocodile, or for that matter with
any other actually existing beast. For example, Leviathan is said to
breathe out fire and smoke (Job 41:11-13-Eng 19-21), which is
suggestive of a mythological creature, and it is implicit in God's
argument that no human is able to capture him. We probably have here
the same mythological Leviathan who is attested elsewhere in the OT,
and whom God overcame at the creation (though it is argueable that he
now has only one head instead of seven). The point of God's arguement
seems to be that since Job cannot overcome Leviathan, how much less
can he hope to overcome in arguement the God who defeated him.
Accordingly, Job repents, in dust and ashes (Job 42:1-6). As part of
the divine speech, Job is asked whether he can play with Leviathan
(Job 40-29-Eng 41:5). This is clearly an allusion to Ps 104:26, where
it is possible to render "There go the ships, and Leviathan whom you
formed to play with." Whether this was what the author of Psalm 104
was intending to say, or whether we should prefer the translation,
"There go the ships, and Leviathan whom you formed to play in it (sc.
the sea), the former intepretation is clearly what the author of the
second divine speech pressuposed. In Ps 104:26 Leviathan has been
supposed to be the whale, but it is possible that here again we it is
rather a mythological creature which is in view.
...
Leviathan is mentioned in later Jewish literature. For example, 2
Esdr 6:49-52, 2 Bar. 2:4, 1 En. 6:7-9, 24. Leviathan along with
Behemoth, is to be devoured at the Messianic banquet. Furthermore,
ther ecan be no doubt, in view of Leviathan's seven heads, that it is
this mythological monster which underlies the seven-headed dragon
(Satan) in Rev 12:3 and the seven headed beast (Rome) in Rev 13:1,
17:3. Similarly the seven-headed dragon in Odes Sol. 22:5, Pistis
Sophia 66 and Qidd. 29b must also reflect Leviathan.
...
JOHN DAY
>>
there is no entry for Behemoth.
>
>
>
> > > T.H. Gaster <<..."coiled one"... . A prototype of the cosmogonic myth
> > > appears in the Canaanite texts from Ras-Shamra-Ugarit (fourteenth
> > > century B.C.) where Baal defeats the draconic L-t-n; while the
> > > apocalyptic version is probably influenced by parallel Iranian beliefs
> > > concerning the dragon Aži Dahaka cf. Yasht 13.62). ...
> > > In Job 41:1; Ps. 104:26, the term "Leviathan" is used by extension a
> > > sea monster in general, without mythological implication. >>
>
> > > under "Behemoth"by T.H. Gaster it says << ... Behemoth, like
> > > Leviathan, is said to be one of the "great sea monsters" fashioned on
> > > the fifth day of creation (Gen. 1:21). >>
Peter T. Daniels
> > > But (for English Bible reference works) the IDB and IDBSupp were
> > > pretty much superseded by the Anchor Bible Dictionary in 1992 (IIRC).
>
> > will do.
>
> there is no entry for Behemoth.
Check under Z for Zoology.
PaulJK
Judging by the terminal <i> in <Kubicki> and <Dubitzki> my guess
would be that these names hail originally from Polish or Wendish.
In Czech, today as in the past, they would be spelled with an <�>.
If they had been spelled with an <y> before they were Germanised,
I expect there would be no strong reason to change them to <i>.
Kubicki is derived from Kuba which in term is from Jakub (Jacob).
I don't remember off hand if Kuba is (natively) used in German
speaking countries. Dub in Dubitzki a is common Slavic word
for Oak.
Back to the original <-ecke>. If one wanted to suggest a Slavic
origin of it then the second <e> might be more difficult to explain.
<-ck�> or <-cke> are neuter gender forms and as such hardly
ever occur in construction of personal names. I have no data
on how frequently, or if at all, can Slavic suffixes <-cki>, <-ck�>,
<-cky>, or <-ck�> end up as <-cke> during one of the many
historical periods of name Germanizations.
pjk
Yusuf B Gursey
only real animals are included.
it only lists
bĕhēmâ for "domestic animals, general term" and gives the arabic
cognate bahīmatun .
in the footnote it says
<<
Probable etymology "dumb" (beast). Cf, Eth bĕhma. In general opposed
to h.ayyâ, "wild animal" (e.g. Gen 7:14). According to Jeffrey, Arabic
bahīmatun < Heb.
>>
I don't think bahīmatun is a loanword IMHO.