Perhaps a silly Question

Overheal

But God's name is Yaweh?

Sorry but I do not know this stuff, and I'm doing a research paper on Israel so looking over the book of Exodus on wikipedia I think my head hurts a little bit now.

im invisible

yes

philologos

The Hebrew language looks like יהוה‎.

There has been some confusion over how to transliterate this into Latin characters. Some have come up with Jehovah, others have come up with Yahweh. Hebrew vowels can be quite difficult recalling what little of Biblical Hebrew I tried to teach myself before. Modern Hebrew excludes them all together meaning that you have to often guess based on context what vowels go where. Biblical Hebrew does it by dotted characters beneath words.

English translations use the term LORD to counteract this confusion.

Overheal

philologos wrote: »

The Hebrew language looks like יהוה‎.

There has been some confusion over how to transliterate this into Latin characters. Some have come up with Jehovah, others have come up with Yahweh. Hebrew vowels can be quite difficult recalling what little of Biblical Hebrew I tried to teach myself before. Modern Hebrew excludes them all together meaning that you have to often guess based on context what vowels go where. Biblical Hebrew does it by dotted characters beneath words.

English translations use the term LORD to counteract this confusion.

Ah. I like the way Yaweh sounds though. However I suppose it distills the Monotheism a bit. Hence the Lord or God I guess would have taken much stronger hold.

As for Jehovah that just reminds me of that scene in Life of Brian..

I may respectfully need to ask more questions in this thread because I don't want to write any falsehoods because I don't have time to read the entire Torah or anything like that for this essay. So when Yaweh lead the Israelites to Mt. Sinai was it basically a deal/pact that in exchange for the Ten Commandments the people were promised Canaan?

PDN

Overheal wrote: »

I may respectfully need to ask more questions in this thread because I don't want to write any falsehoods because I don't have time to read the entire Torah or anything like that for this essay. So when Yaweh lead the Israelites to Mt. Sinai was it basically a deal/pact that in exchange for the Ten Commandments the people were promised Canaan?

No, Canaan was promised to Abraham long before the Ten Commandments.

God wanted the Israelites to be a distinct people, clearly separate from the tribes that surrounded them. The Law (including the 10 Commandments) was to help them maintain that distinct lifestyle. It was the sign that they were God's Covenant people.

Overheal

Thanks PDN. I found this link also that looked fairly helpful

http://godstenlaws.com/ten-commandments/history.html

So I gather from that the commandments/covenant were around a long time before being put on the stone tablets by the Israelites?

by the way that link sort of blew my mind a bit with this Jacob/Israel bit and 12 tribes and - ouch. I want to watch Battlestar Galactica again. When it says JAcob was Israel does that mean literally or basically just bloodlines and lineage

PDN

Overheal wrote: »

by the way that link sort of blew my mind a bit with this Jacob/Israel bit and 12 tribes and - ouch. I want to watch Battlestar Galactica again. When it says JAcob was Israel does that mean literally or basically just bloodlines and lineage

Jacob was renamed Israel - so Jacob's 12 sons were the children of Israel. The descendants of those sone would become the 12 tribes of Israel.

But it was also possible for non-descendants to marry into Israel. For example, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute - yet she married an Israelite and became an ancestor of Jesus.

Overheal

"and you will drive them out before you". I'm sorry I asked......

http://bible.cc/exodus/23-31.htm

New International Version wrote:

My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. "I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land. "I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River. I will hand over to you the people who live in the land and you will drive them out before you. Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you."

This interesting tool (im sure you might be aware) shows parallel bible translations. It's quite lovely. But that quote I quoted above got me to thinking so I scanned back through the rest of Exodus 23 and so God was basically like 'yeah take this land I'm going to wipe the people who live their out and give it to you. Oh and dont let them in your land because they will cause you to sin.' Gosh. How much you figure that plays into current Palestine-Israeli conflict eh.

Very interesting stuff all the same but it's wild to see how many multiple interpretations there are of even this much.

PDN

Overheal wrote: »

"and you will drive them out before you". I'm sorry I asked......

http://bible.cc/exodus/23-31.htm



This interesting tool (im sure you might be aware) shows parallel bible translations. It's quite lovely. But that quote I quoted above got me to thinking so I scanned back through the rest of Exodus 23 and so God was basically like 'yeah take this land I'm going to wipe the people who live their out and give it to you. Oh and dont let them in your land because they will cause you to sin.' Gosh. How much you figure that plays into current Palestine-Israeli conflict eh.

Very interesting stuff all the same but it's wild to see how many multiple interpretations there are of even this much.

Yes, it's certainly a factor in the conflict, that the land was given by God to Israel.

Of course the Old Testament also says, numerous times, that the Israelites would also be removed (albeit with a promise of future restoration) from the land if they disobeyed God.

Overheal

Hmm quite. About when would they have disobeyed God though? When the Romans kicked them out, the Babylonians enslaved them? The history on the Israeli nation is rich...

Actually I need help finding a biblical reference for when Jerusalem was declared the capital of Israel/the eternal capital of the jews/etc. - which of course seems somewhat essential in understanding that neither the Palestinians or the Israelis were willing to accept UN/International control of the City under one of the first partition plans.

I've begun thinking to myself I have bitten off a lot here to choke on: I probably couldve written a whole 1500 word essay on the exodus. Why didn't I.