February 2009

Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. We're going to be taking a break from Wednesday Hebrew to make room for a new feature, Person of the Week. Each week, we will be learning about an individual who contributed greatly to the Jewish world. To start things off, I can think of no person more fitting for this blog than the scholar Maimonides.

Maimonides was a 12th century Talmudic sage who operated exclusively in Muslim-controlled territories of Europe and Northern Africa. Like many scholars of his time, he is referred to by a Greek name (Maimonides) thanks to the pervasiveness of neo-classical ideals and fashions. In his time, however, he would have gone by any number of other names, depending on his surrounding community. His Hebrew name is Moshe ben Ma'imon, meaning "Moses, son of Ma'imon". He also would have been known by the very exact, honorific-laden Arabic name Abu Imran Mussa bin Maimun ibn Abdallah al-Qurtubi al-Israili.

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Last Wednesday we explored the history of biblical translation as it began in Greek-occupied Alexandria, Egypt. One of the more confounding aspects of translating the Torah is the fact that there are numerous names for Judaism's one God. In the early days of translation and interpretation, this caused no small amount of confusion. Some of those names refer to aspects of God, like strength or healing, while others are poetic metaphors, like father or king. There are too many names of God in the Torah to simply list them here, but we will be looking at some of the more commonly used variations, as well as some of the unusual or unique names.

The simplest and likely the oldest Hebrew name for God is El. This term can be traced to the Northwest regions of Semitic-language use near the dawn of civilization. Cultures pre-dating Judaism used the term in reference to their own gods, specifically in reference to divine might and power. When Arabic-speaking people adopted Islam they also adopted a cognate of El, the very well-known Allah.

In order to distinguish their El from the gods of other peoples, Hebrew-speakers developed the term Elohim.

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Several times now, I have made reference to the difficulty of directly translating Hebrew into English. This problem has resulted in centuries of debate over the exact meaning of many passages from the Torah. This is not an issue confined to any one religion. Modern Jews who have little to no training in Hebrew, Toritic or otherwise, often approach scripture from the same angle as Christians who only have the Old Testament in their regional vulgate. So, why is Hebrew difficult to translate and why are there so many discrepancies between the many versions of the same passages?

The story begins in Alexandria, Egypt circa 300 BCE. At this time, the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon spread throughout the Mediterranean region, including the former Egyptian Empire. After Alexander's death, Egypt came under the control the Ptolemy line, maintaining a decidedly Greek influence in the area, including the Greek language. Alexandria was the home to The Great Library, a collection of texts that was, at the time, unrivaled the world over.

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