"his words no longer fell to the ground" (I think the prof was referring to 1 Samuel 3:19)

[hermionesviolin]

eponis posted about the statement from the 76th General Convention [of the Episcopal Church] on gay and lesbian members.

***

So, I still haven't watched the lectures on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, but I started attending World Religions class again tonight because we were beginning the Judaism/Christianity/Islam section of the course.  I actually read the Judaism chapter (and have started the Christianity chapter) in An Anthology of Living Religions (2nd Edition) and realized I'm actually almost all the way through Subverting Hatred (I'd been reading chapters out of order).

I spoke in class a whole bunch -- primarily to point out that we really shouldn't be pronouncing the Tetragrammaton when we're talking about it in a Jewish context -- and during the break I pointed out to the prof that in the Sodom and Gomorrah prelude, it's Abraham who ends the bargaining session not God, but while I had assorted quibbles with presentation, there wasn't anything that really rankled me (save the aforementioned "Can we please not say Yahweh or Jehovah, especially when we're talking about the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews?").

The prof read some portions from the Old Testament, and a couple of them I felt like: these resonate in my bones -- which throws me a little because a lot of the resonances are relatively recent (like post-college).

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country, your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." (Genesis 12:1-3)

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 22:21)

He also mentioned that Israel means one who wrestled/struggled with God and survived, and Peniel always hits me hard these days.  I think it was Andrew at CAUMC small group who posited that doubt is a good thing because it means that you're engaging ... something like that, I don't even remember exactly; what I remember was how powerful an affirmation it was that "wrestling with faith" is a really good thing -- and I've hung tight to that assurance ever since (my facebook Religious Views are "wrestling with faith [low church Protestant]").  And my mother about made me cry when she told me some months ago, "I love that you struggle with Christianity fiercely and faithfully and I trust the Angel will not let you go without a blessing."

More generally, I just felt so vibrantly alive and engaged throughout class; apparently these texts really are where I live.

Comments

[eponis.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for the linkage!

The question of what to do about the Tetragrammaton in academic contexts is a tough one. A lot of scholars -- even Jewish scholars -- say and write it in those contexts, including me. The theory, I think, is that it's like how moderns gynecologists can't talk to their patients about their "down there": specificity and clarity are important. There's also the fact that the Tetragrammaton was written and pronounced in ancient times, and scholars of the Bible (less so scholars of Judaism) are interested in practice of that time. Of course, some scholars (primarily Orthodox Jews) do still avoid pronouncing it, getting around it in various ways; one guy I know spells it out ("yud-heh-vav-heh") every time rather than saying it together. Still, it's enough of a standard practice in academia that it bothers me much less there than contexts of praxis -- when, say, Christians start preaching about "Yahweh."

Regardless, it sounds like a very cool class; I've been enjoying your write-ups of it.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Weirdly you were the only person on my flist to post about it (though I actually don't have that many Episcopalians on the flist, and one of them is at GC and thus not LJ-ing), so I'm particularly grateful that it was such a good post.


My impression was that the Tetragrammaton was only pronounced by ... well Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh#Historical_overview) says, "by the High Priest on Yom Kippur when the Temple was standing in Jerusalem."

And I feel like there are plenty of ways in which one can indicate specifically what/who one is talking about without actually saying "Yahweh" or "Jehovah." And because there are a variety of vowel markers for the Tetragrammaton, I feel like any pronunciation is going to be an approximation, and it feels appropriate and respectful to me to use workarounds. But admittedly I know very little about Judaism.


Having been unimpressed with the first couple class sessions (and thus feeling hesitant about the class in general), I'm so glad to be so happy about it now that we're doing stuff I really care about.

[(Anonymous)]

My impression was that the Tetragrammaton was only pronounced by ... well Wikipedia says, "by the High Priest on Yom Kippur when the Temple was standing in Jerusalem."

So, it's been a little while since I did a lot of reading on this specifically, but . . . yes, by the time of the late second Temple, that was probably the case. However, there's a lot of Biblical evidence that says that it wasn't an issue earlier. Even Ezra, one of the latest Biblical books, says God's name aloud in his public prayers. Many of the psalms, which were meant to be sung aloud, include it. People say it in the dialogue of lots of earlier Biblical stories. It's a special name, yes, but not unspeakable -- just intimate.

Again, I'm not denying that this practice changed by the time of the formation of modern Judaism, which is why I obviously wouldn't use the name in a group of observant Jews. In my experience, though, academics don't care as much. (My one Jewish prof at YDS certainly said it.) The dividing line seems to be whether you're talking about ancient Israelite religion (how do you talk about the "YHWH and his asherah" descriptions without saying YHWH?) or about the last couple of thousand years of Judaism. In the latter case, yes, I would consider it disrespectful to say, "Jews worship the God Yahweh." But I know not everyone would agree.

[eponis.livejournal.com]

Ack, forgot to sign in for the previous comment! Plz direct replies to this comment, so I get them e-mailed to me.

Also, it should say "'YHWH and his asherah' inscriptions," not descriptions.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

It's a special name, yes, but not unspeakable -- just intimate.

I really like that framing of it.

P.S. You could have just reposted your comment from your actual account and I could have just deleted the "anon" version :P

(And you can put the post on StalkerPin (http://www.livejournal.com/manage/subscriptions/entry.bml?journal=hermionesviolin&itemid=1291173) to ensure comments are delivered to you.)

[wisdomeagle]

I think it was Andrew at CAUMC small group who posited that doubt is a good thing because it means that you're engaging ... something like that, I don't even remember exactly; what I remember was how powerful an affirmation it was that "wrestling with faith" is a really good thing -- and I've hung tight to that assurance ever since

Rev. S. says that fear, not doubt, is the enemy of/opposite of faith.