[lit-ideas] Re: The tetragrammaton
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 08:19:49 +0100
On the other hand, I fail to see why an Egyptian word could not have four
letters. Many do, and Egyptian writing is also consonantal, insofar as it
is phonetic. But I wasn't thinking about an Egyptian origin for YHWH, I was
thinking about a (possible) Egyptian origin for "I am that I am."
O.K.
On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 7:58 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I thought that I already pointed out that Hebrew does not have the present
> tense of 'to be,' hence it cannot express I AM THAT I AM.
>
> O.K.
>
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 3:16 AM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
> DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> O. K. writes wonders (if that's the verb) that "whether God originally
>> spoke to Moses in some language other than Hebrew, such as Egyptian - is a
>> matter of conjecture."
>>
>> re: his previous quotation
>>
>> "is the common English translation (JPS among others) of the
>> response God used in the Hebrew Bible when Moses asked for his name
>> (Exodus 3:14)."
>>
>> Mmm. So let's revise -- after all, Emerson said that conversation is not
>> permitted without tropes. I shall hypothesise that a conversation did take
>> place between Moses and Good. Let's revise Exodus 3:13 and 3:14. 3:15 is
>> mainly Moses's counter-move in the conversation, "Yet they won't believe
>> me."
>>
>> But in 3:13 we have Moses's question:
>>
>> "Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to
>> them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me,
>> ‘What is
>> his name?’ what shall I say to them?”"
>>
>> This is clear as can be.
>>
>> It's not as if Moses himself is interested to know the name. It's just in
>> case the people of Israel _wonder_.
>>
>> 3:14 opens:
>>
>>
>> 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[a] And he said, “Say this to the
>> people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
>>
>> Here there is a use-mention distinction:
>>
>> i. "I am" has sent me to you.
>>
>> Note that that differs from
>>
>> ii. "I am who I am" has sent me to you.
>>
>> God is advising Moses what his conversational move in reply to a possible
>> question by the people of Israel to Moses as to what the name of 'the God
>> of
>> your fathers'.
>>
>> This possibly struck Kripke in "Names and descriptions". For consider:
>>
>> iii. If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your
>> fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what
>> shall
>> I say to them?
>>
>> In the above, Moses is distinguishing between what Donnellan has as a
>> definite description:
>>
>> (D) "The God of your fathers".
>>
>> and
>>
>> a proper name.
>>
>> Note that it does not occur to Moses to have as a ready answer, "And why
>> is
>> THAT relevant. I'm saying HE is the God of your fathers. What does a name
>> add to HIM?"
>>
>> Exodus 3:15 continues with what God thinks is the best reply for Moses to
>> give, in case they ask for the name of the God of the fathers of the
>> people
>> of Israel.
>>
>> "15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The
>> Lord,[b] 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 thus I am
>> to
>> be remembered throughout all generations."
>>
>> So, it does seem as, to echo Emerson, God is using a trope when he utters:
>>
>> v. Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
>>
>> vb. Say this to the people of Israel: "I am" has sent me to you.
>>
>> As Geary notes, Moses was careful about this, since when he faced the
>> people of Israel and they asked for the NAME of the God of their fathers,
>> "he
>> must have been emphatic in the quotation marks".
>>
>> Postulating Egyptian as the source of the tetragrammaton does not seem to
>> fit that it's FOUR letters, and four letters only, which are involved here
>> -- unless in Egyptian only four letters are involved, too?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Speranza
>>
>>
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