[lit-ideas] Re: The tetragrammaton
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 08:30:07 -0500
"The Names of God" was once a bestseller.
In a message dated 3/2/2015 12:01:19 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx quotes from Jamie Stuart, "A Glasgow Bible", and
comments:
"It's the sort of thing you read in small doses. And then you feel better.
Homeopathic I suppose."
Jamie Stuart, a Church of Scotland elder from the High Carntyne Church,
produced "A Glasgow Bible", relating some biblical tales in the Glaswegian
vernacular.
"I am the God o Abraham, Isaac an Jacob. Ah've seen the sufferin o ma
people in Egypt, an I am taking them oot o that land. You, Moses, will lead
them aw inty a land flowin wi milk and honey.'
Moses gulped, 'Ah, Lord...eh, n-no me."
One problem seems to be the tetragrammaton.
Granted, Stuart uses "Lord", which the Romans, as "Dominus", ALSO
translated as Tetragrammaton. This was done in Rome _YEARS_ ago by GIROLAMO (or
"Jerome"), saint, as he then wasn't.
In a footnote, Girolamo notes, in Latin, "The reader will bear with me that
"Dominus" is hardly a tetragrammaton."
And the readers bore, because Girolamo used 'hardly'.
The problem with Girolamo was that he was fluent in Greek. So the New
Testament would be what he called in Latin, "a little piece of sweet cake."
He also knew *some* Hebrew (no Egyptian) when he started his translation
project, but moved to Jerusalem to strengthen his grip on Jewish scripture
commentary.
"I could not think of a better place to learn Hebrew," he later told his
friend Marius.
A wealthy Roman aristocrat, Paula, funded Girolamo's stay in a monastery in
Bethlehem and he completed his translation of the Old Testament there.
It is there that he proposes that, for the 'vulgus' (hence Vulgate), the
tetragrammaton should be rendered as "DOMINVS".
Girolamo began his translation of the Bible in 382 -- starting, oddly,
with the Second Part, the New Testament.
By 390, finished with the Second Part, he turned to translating the First
Part, a.k.a. The Hebrew Bible.
He had various options to hand. But decided to translate into Latin
directly from the original Hebrew.
(No mention of Egytptian)
Girolamo completed this work in 405.
Modern scholarship, however, has cast doubts on the actual quality of
Jerome's Hebrew knowledge.
"Surely he could have come up with something shorter for the
'tetragrammaton', or God's name. It means, literally, 'four letters', but
'Dominus' has
seven letters: a 'heptagrammaton', if you wish", Willoughby writes.
It should be pointed out that Jamie Stuart solves the problem. In
Glasgewian, "LORD" is a tetragrammaton.
Note that it's not the name God himself used, but it's used in Moses's
answer to God.
God: "I am the God o Abraham, Isaac an Jacob. Ah've seen the sufferin o ma
people in Egypt, an I am taking them oot o that land. You, Moses, will
lead them aw inty a land flowin wi milk and honey."
Moses (gulping, sandals off as per previous scene). Ah, Lord...eh, n-no me.
Cheers,
Speranza
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