08-18-2008, 08:24 PM
Shlama Mark,
Using "Alaha" or "MarYah" instead of a transliterated "YHWH" in Aramaic is no different than using "Elohim" or "Adonai" or "El Shaddai" in Hebrew, and no different than using "God" and "LORD" in English. None of these are pagan names, in fact they are not names at all, they are merely titles.
I'm not quite sure why substituting a title, or a shorthand like the "YWY" of the Targums, affects the efficacy of the word of God.
You see Akhi, "YHWH" is an actual word in Hebrew and it means something. It doesn't really mean anything in Aramaic, although the root "hwa" is the same between the two languages. However in Aramaic the NAME would be conjugated differently.
I'm not sure if this makes sense to you or not, but it's rather dangerous to place a transliterated "YHWH" into Aramaic since the root is the same yet the morphology would be different. The reader is liable to be confused and may render an entirely different meaning.
It's much better to put the letters "YHWH" into an English-language version of the OT, since it cannot be mistaken for anything viable in the English language. But there are reasons, and darn good ones, that the authors of the Targums substituted with "YWY" or "YY" or "YH" when writing in Aramaic.
Number one: to convey to the reader that the NAME belongs there. Number two: it means nothing in Aramaic, so why write it? Number three: it could be that the transliterated words, especially when used with the wrong vowel points, could mean something entirely different in Aramaic.
Why chance it? Aramaic already had titles for God that were around from before the first Hebrew-speaker was born, that are perfectly acceptable to use.
Using "Alaha" or "MarYah" instead of a transliterated "YHWH" in Aramaic is no different than using "Elohim" or "Adonai" or "El Shaddai" in Hebrew, and no different than using "God" and "LORD" in English. None of these are pagan names, in fact they are not names at all, they are merely titles.
I'm not quite sure why substituting a title, or a shorthand like the "YWY" of the Targums, affects the efficacy of the word of God.
You see Akhi, "YHWH" is an actual word in Hebrew and it means something. It doesn't really mean anything in Aramaic, although the root "hwa" is the same between the two languages. However in Aramaic the NAME would be conjugated differently.
I'm not sure if this makes sense to you or not, but it's rather dangerous to place a transliterated "YHWH" into Aramaic since the root is the same yet the morphology would be different. The reader is liable to be confused and may render an entirely different meaning.
It's much better to put the letters "YHWH" into an English-language version of the OT, since it cannot be mistaken for anything viable in the English language. But there are reasons, and darn good ones, that the authors of the Targums substituted with "YWY" or "YY" or "YH" when writing in Aramaic.
Number one: to convey to the reader that the NAME belongs there. Number two: it means nothing in Aramaic, so why write it? Number three: it could be that the transliterated words, especially when used with the wrong vowel points, could mean something entirely different in Aramaic.
Why chance it? Aramaic already had titles for God that were around from before the first Hebrew-speaker was born, that are perfectly acceptable to use.