Has a pictoral interpretation been made in the past of the Tetragrammaton's letters to form another meaning?
Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 10:56 am
A. The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Babylonians, and Sumerians wrote their inscription for the word God/deity with pictures that themselves denoted meanings they associated with him. For example, the Egyptians used a mix of phonetic and logographic script, their word for God/deity was NTR, and one of the ways they drew their hieroglyphic for this word was as a sitting man with a long chin beard. The chin beards were associated with pharaonic ruler, and so their image for God/deity associated God/deity/divinity with the concept of a ruling man.
B. Of course, Hebrew is basically a phonetic script, but Hebrew began or evolved out of one where the letters themselves were drawn as pictures and carried associated meanings. And so my first question is what do you think of the theory that sometimes Hebrew retained meanings of the letters when the letters were used in words?
The Hebrew 4 Christians webpage says:
What this author is saying is that sometimes Hebrew words have deeper root meanings based on the meanings of the letters, but that we can't as a general rule use this strategy of looking at each letter to find the meaning.
An analogy that comes to mind is in English there are root words, but as a general rule, you can't assume that every time you see the combination of letters used in root words in longer words that the longer words include the root meaning. For example, a man is a male person and man- can also be a prefix referring to the hand, but there are words that include man- and don't have associations with male humans or hands: mantle, manna, mane, manatee.
C. Jewish writers sometimes gave mystical or inner importance to their letters. A common example of this is the use in Jewish mysticism of an idea called gematria, where each letter carries a numerical value. In this thread though, I am especially interested in the approach of interpretation where each letter bears with it its pictoral value. For example, the aleph was originally written as an ox's head.
The Hebrew 4 Christians website says about the letter yod:
Jeff A. Benner writes in his book "The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible":
One website claims:
E. So my main question for this thread is whether in history an interpretation has been given to the tetragrammaton based on the meaning of its letters. Based on the ancient Hebrew letters chart (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/files/alphabet_chart.gif), their meanings would be arm/hand (yod), behold (heh), and nail (waw).
Are there passages in the Tanakh or Jewish tradition associating an arm/hand with beholding and with a nail? (Ecclesiastes 12:11? Psalm 22:6-18?)
Glynda-Lee Hoffmann writes in: The Secret Dowry of Eve: Woman's Role in the Development of Consciousness:
Hal Smith
B. Of course, Hebrew is basically a phonetic script, but Hebrew began or evolved out of one where the letters themselves were drawn as pictures and carried associated meanings. And so my first question is what do you think of the theory that sometimes Hebrew retained meanings of the letters when the letters were used in words?
The Hebrew 4 Christians webpage says:
Proto-Canaanite Pictographs
Like other ancient writing systems, the Hebrew alphabet originally was written using a pictographic script:
...
The Proto-Hebrew Script
This is also called early Aramaic Script. The key extant example is the Moabite Stone. This was the Hebrew (ketav Ivri) used by the Jewish nation up to the Babylonian Exile
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Gramma ... story.html
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Gramma ... rsion.htmlThe numeric values (and ancient pictographs) are sometimes used to infer "deeper" meanings from certain Hebrew words found in the Scriptures. While this technique may occasionally offer some interesting insights, it is to be avoided as an exegetical principle since it can lead to speculations and doubtful interpretations. ... the rule of thumb is to first master the p'shat (plain historical meaning) before moving on to other "levels" of the Scriptures.
The schema above is sometimes used to infer hidden meanings of Biblical terms. Generally, the process is one of simple substitution, where the ancient pictographic symbol is substituted for some Ashri text (modern book text). For example:
Pictographic Substitutions
El: [LAMED-ALEPH] Meaning: Strong Leader. Name for God; "Strength".
Ab: [BETH ALEPH]: Meaning Strength of the House. Father
What this author is saying is that sometimes Hebrew words have deeper root meanings based on the meanings of the letters, but that we can't as a general rule use this strategy of looking at each letter to find the meaning.
An analogy that comes to mind is in English there are root words, but as a general rule, you can't assume that every time you see the combination of letters used in root words in longer words that the longer words include the root meaning. For example, a man is a male person and man- can also be a prefix referring to the hand, but there are words that include man- and don't have associations with male humans or hands: mantle, manna, mane, manatee.
C. Jewish writers sometimes gave mystical or inner importance to their letters. A common example of this is the use in Jewish mysticism of an idea called gematria, where each letter carries a numerical value. In this thread though, I am especially interested in the approach of interpretation where each letter bears with it its pictoral value. For example, the aleph was originally written as an ox's head.
The Hebrew 4 Christians website says about the letter yod:
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Gramma ... d/yod.htmlThe [pre-Ashurite] pictograph for Yod looks like an arm or hand,
The Mystery of Yod
[Based on Ashurite script:] In the Jewish mystical tradition, Yod represents a mere dot, a divine point of energy. Since Yod is used to form all the other letters, and since God uses the letters as the building blocks of creation, Yod indicates God's omnipresence.
Yod and Humility
The letter Yod, being the smallest of the letters, is also a picture of humility. For example, when Jacob was renamed from Ya'akov to Yisrael, all that remained of his former name was the letter Yod.
[Ya'akov to Yisrael]
Yod can also be seen as a mark of humility in the text that says Moses was "the most humble man" upon the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3):
The Jewish scribes say that an extra Yod is inserted in the word ana (meaning humble or meek) to emphasize the humility of Moses.
The "Kots of a Yod"
Because of its humility, Yod is adorned with a small ascending prong (tag) that points to God. The "kotz of a Yod" is the small serif at the bottom of the "face" of the Yod's head and is the smallest of all markings made in the Hebrew text. ... In the Jewish scribal arts known as Soferut, a Torah Scroll is invalid (possul) if it lacks even this serif of the Yod (Menachot 29a):
Jeff A. Benner writes in his book "The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible":
D. Judaism and Jewish tradition gave special importance to the written name for God, the Tetragrammaton.Hebrew was originally written with a pictographic script similar to Egyptian Hieroglyphs but, when Israel was taken into captivity in Babylon they adopted the Aramaic script of the region. ... The Early Semitic script was pictographic where each letter represented an object. In Figure 1, the top left corner letter is a picture of water representing the soun M. .... The Middle Semitic script is an evolved form of the original pictographic script into a simmpler form and used by the different Semitic groups including the Hebrews...
Figures:
Semitic pictographic inscription on stone boulder c. 1500 BC;
Hebrew inscription on potsherd c. 900 BC,
Moabite inscription on stone c. 900 BC,
Ammonite inscription on stone c. 900 BC
The Ancient Hebrew alphabet has four characteristics: form, sound, name and meaning.
Form
The original letter is pictographic, meaning it represents a picture of something, such as the letter [horizontal oval] o representing a mouth.
Name
Each pictograph is associated with a single syllable of two consonants. This syllable is also the name of the letter. The name of the letter o is peh and is also the Hebrew word for mouth. The name is determined by comparisong the various names of this letter as used in Semitic languages...
Meaning
The mnemonic meaning of a pictograph is the extended meanings related to the pictograph. These mnemonic meanings most often are related to the pictograph by their function rather than appearance. For example, the letter o has the extended meanings speak, blow, and open, functions of the mouth.
One website claims:
http://www.yhwh.com/asimple.htm
- The Absolute Name as originally given to Moses on Sinai (Exodus 3:14) is AHYH ASR AHYH: "I Will Be Who I Will Be."
- The Tetragrammaton, spelled vertically, is the pictogram .
- "God" is a noun. It is a type of Being. "God" is not a name. "Human" is what you are....but you also have a name.
- the 3rd Commandment [says], "Thou shall not take the Name of YHWH your God in vain..."
E. So my main question for this thread is whether in history an interpretation has been given to the tetragrammaton based on the meaning of its letters. Based on the ancient Hebrew letters chart (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/files/alphabet_chart.gif), their meanings would be arm/hand (yod), behold (heh), and nail (waw).
Are there passages in the Tanakh or Jewish tradition associating an arm/hand with beholding and with a nail? (Ecclesiastes 12:11? Psalm 22:6-18?)
Glynda-Lee Hoffmann writes in: The Secret Dowry of Eve: Woman's Role in the Development of Consciousness:
It sounds like she is saying that YHWH is an acronym for those four letters, and she uses Qabalistic concepts. But her conclusion that YHWH is a process and "not a deity" sounds in conflict with the teachings in the Torah. Is that just her own conclusion and not that of Qabalah?In Genesis the Qabalists presented the pattern of wholeness in several ingenious ways throughout the text. The pattern can be recognized only (initially) if the text is studied letter by letter, because it is revealed through the code that positions the letters. The code is quite simple. All the words of text are actually acronyms. For instance, "the Lord" is the acronym YHWH, derived from the first letters of the names of the Autiot, Yod-Hay-Waw-Hawy. Yod is a physical container, the body. Waw or Vav is the sixth Aut..., a fertilizing agent. Hay, fifth Aut in the Qabalic system, is the archetype of life. YHWH has two Hays - one for inner life and the other for outher life.
Therefore, YHWH is not a deity, but rather a reference to the continual process of inner life fertilizing outer life and outer life fertilizing inner life. It is the self-awareness and transformation that unfold as we process data from both our inner and outer worlds, naturally producing changes and alterations in behavior. YHWH is a process that can occur only in human beings, the simple process of recognizing when our actions fail to result in what we intended, producing a change in our behavior so that the desired intentions can then be realized. When YHWH is read linguistically, it becomes the clumsy Yahweh and irrevocably loses its original sacred meaning. Its interpretation as the Lord, or Jehovah, is equally misleading.
Hal Smith