Shem Yaua and Philo of Alexandria, Josephus the Priest
Philo and Josephus and their approach to the Tetragrammaton in Exodus 3:14-17
Purpose
How does the attitude and teaching of Philo and Josephus differ from that represented by the Bible in relation the Tetragrammaton? Were there departures from the Biblical approach caused by traditions of their own community or their own logic applied to the text? Were they using eisegesis or exegesis when they approached the text? Was their God the same as the God of the Tanakh? This paper is intended to take a look into these types of questions. The focus will specifically compare there approach to Exodus 3:14-17 and to see if this can help us understand if and why they depart from the plain meaning of the Biblical text.
The Historical Context
During the whole period of Biblical History from the time of Moses until the time of Judah’s exile to Babylon in 586 BC the use of the Tetragrammaton in the daily life of the people of Israel was expected, legislated and practiced. It was used in Psalms to praise Yahwah, whether in Tabernacle or Temple or just King David singing Yahwah’s praises whilst shepherding. It was used as part of a greeting between a farmer and his laborers as we see in the book of Ruth with Boaz and his laborers. Boaz greeted them “Yahwah be with you”, they responded Yahwah bless you. They were not in a temple nor in a synagogue but in the fields. They were not in Jerusalem or any particular holy city. But they greeted one another with the name Yahwah and no substitute. It was put on the people of Israel by the words of Cohenim in the blessing in Numbers. In 722 BC the Northern Kingdom of Israel were deported to Assyria by Sennacherib. In 586 BC the Southern Kingdom, Judah, was destroyed and the leaders moved to the region of Babylon. There in the east the people of Israel came under the influence of Babylonian and Assyrian cultures and began to forget Hebrew and speak Aramaic, so that around a century and a half later after some returned Ezra needed interpreters for the people to understand when he read the Torah in Hebrew. Cyrus took over Babylon in 538 BC and permitted the return of Jews to Israel and for the next two centuries the people of Israel came under the influence of the Persia’s Zoroastrian culture. The name Yahwah began to disappear from usage and we see in the Aramaic transliteration of names in Ezra and Nehemiah that names containing parts of the Tetragrammaton were shortened and the name disappeared. Yeho-shua became Yeshua, Yeho-zadak became Yozadak, Yahwah became Mar. In or around 586 BC a group of Jews also settled in Egypt, in direct disobedience to Yahwah’s instructions through Jeremiah the prophet, and they began to shorten the name and combine it with the names of Egyptian idols such as Anath, as we can see from the Elephantine papyri[1].
By 323 BC the Greeks under Alexander of Macedon had created and empire, across from Greece to India. They had conquered the whole of the Persian Empire, which had stretched from India to Ethiopia.[2] Alexander’s policy of joining his Hellenic culture with the local cultures around the world and of building Greek cities all over Asia and at the same time respecting the religious beliefs of those he conquered lead to another massive influence on the Jewish communities and their belief systems. With his death and the division of his empire among his four of his Generals began the Hellenistic period. He built a city call Alexandria in Egypt and Jews were invited to settle there and they did so in large numbers. The descendants of Ptolemy (one of his four generals) gained the rule the Egypt. And within 50 years the Greek language had began to displace Hebrew or Aramaic in the Jewish population and the time came when the Jewish community would make a translation of their Hebrew and Aramaic scripture into Greek. This is accepted as taking place in the reign of Ptolemy II Philopater. This was the first translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language and was greeted with some fanfare according to traditions represented in the Letter of Aristeas and Philo. This translation has become known as the Septuagint or the LXX.[3]For the next century and a half this was the Torah and finally the Bible of the Greek speaking Jewish world. Writers such as Aristobulos of Alexandria[4] began to apply Greek hermeneutical practices to the Biblical text. Especially to difficult teachings of texts, the techniques the Greeks had used to interpret the follies and iniquities of the gods in Homer’s writings began to be applied to difficulties in the LXX. Everything became open to a deeper meaning and the book became a book of allegories instead of historical and literal truth. This was not surprising because these Jews had willingly settled in Egypt the very place God had said they would return to only as his judgment on their rebellion against his Torah in Deuteronomy. Allegory was a very good tool to justify the anomaly of their position “ It is among the Greeks that we first find the use of allegory that compares in anyway with that of Philo” [5] Finally the Greeks were succeeded by the Romans as the rulers of the regions. But the intellectual world remained Hellenistic and ruled by Greek thinking and the philosophies for at least another two centuries. The philosophies of the Greeks including the teaching of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans the Sophists, the Middle Platonists, the Peripateticians and neo Pythagorans all became very popular among Jews and non Jews alike and the period into which Philo was born is called by some the Middle Platonist period. Middle Platonism was a very eclectic philosophical school taking a little from the various schools around about[6]. Philo was a child of this whole Hellenistic education as well as a child of the cultural Judaism of Alexandria. The Jews of this period in Palestine were also influenced by the various cultures and religions they had come into contact with. The Egyptians and Babylonian and Persians all had concepts of ineffable names of deities as we shall see later.
With the revolt against the rule of the Seleucids which took place in Palestine, during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the cultural background of Josephus began to be shaped. The Pharisees, a lay political and religious movement, focused on a respect for Oral tradition, the Prophets and the Torah, and the Saducees a priestly political movement who only accepted the Torah arose in this period. And with all these influences the background was laid for the beliefs of both Philo the Alexandrian and Josephus the Pharisee.[7]
Philo and Josephus were living in the [i]Hellenistic period of European and Asian history. They both used Greek and Josephus had understanding of Aramaic and Hebrew as well, but Philo appears not to have had too much understanding of Hebrew[ii]. There are traditions among some sectors of second temple Judaism that the Tetragrammaton or the name Yahwah should not be used in the daily life of faithful of the Jewish communities at that period.[iii] Indeed in the various kinds of Synagogues whether Aramaic, Greek or Hebrew speaking, euphemisms were used to avoid using the Tetragrammaton[8]. The evidence indicates that the ban on the use of the name was by no means universal and there were some Jewish communities who did not adhere to the ban. It is very difficult to ascertain when various sects among the Hebrews began to ban the use of the name, however the use of euphemisms for Yahwah is evident from the Psalms such as Psalm 14 and 53 where Elohim is substituted for Yahwah. It is clear that this was a custom which gradually crept in as the Jewish community got further and further away from the prophetic faith of pre exilic Judaism and the neglect of the name, through a misunderstanding of the meaning of its holiness, can be seen as a fulfillment of what Jeremiah saw happening in the Jewish community of his day.[iv]
We will look a little at the evidence from the period indicating the extent of the use of the Tetragrammaton and then we will contextualise our writers and then look at relevant Philonic and Josephan texts to see their attitude to the name as reflected in approach to Exodus 3 and the call of Moses and to ascertain if the ban was in effect in their particular Jewish communities. Philo was from Alexandria and part of the allegorical school and Josephus from Palestine and claimed to be of the sect of the Pharisees. We will also observe how Philo’s attitude almost points to a transformation of the God of Israel into a God in Philo’s own desired image.
ONE
The Tetragrammaton Context
The idea of ineffable divine names has been traced back to Egypt and the cult of Isis and Ra. The actual dating of the ban on the Tetragrammaton is apparently uncertain. The Jewish Encylopedia article “Tetragrammaton” lists a number of scholars with differing ideas as to when and where the ban originated. It is however somewhere between the Babylonian Exile and the Hellenistic period. The Jewish literature we have in the second temple period indicate that there was a ban in some circles but as stated above it was not adhered in all circles. Legge, in his Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity p 37 states “The ineffability of the divine names was an old idea in Egypt, especially in the Osirian religion, where it forms the base of the story of Ra and Isis. So the name of Osiris himself was said to be was said to be ineffable…The name Marduk of Babylon is in the same way declared ineffable in an inscription of Neri…The name Yahweh became ineffable directly after Alexander. …In every case a magical idea that the god might be compelled by utterance of his secret name seems to be the root of the practice”.
However the source of the ban could have been Babylon for the pronunciation of divine names was guarded in the Babylonian mystery cults “ the true pronunciation of divine names was carefully hidden from the uninitiated multitudes.” [v]Clearly it is likely to come from a source somewhere in the diaspora for the Scriptures have a ban on the pronunciation of names of “elohim acherim” and many express commands indicating the need to call on the name Yahwah and even as Moses clashed with Pharoah they both used the divine name[vi].
The use of the Tetragrammaton in the Hellenistic Period
If we were transported back in time to the first century AD and to Jerusalem, Israel and to the great day of the fast of Yom ha Kipporim we are told by some Jewish sources originating in that period that on that day the high priest would pronounce the name of the God of Israel, Yahwah, according to its letters. During his intercession we are told that he would use the name 10 times on that day. The words of the high priest are recorded in Mishnah Yoma 3:8, 4:2 and 6:2.
“O God[Yahwah] I Have committed iniquities, I have transgressed, I have sinned before thee, I an my house. O God [Yahwah], forgive the iniquities and transgressions and the sins which I have and transgressed and sinned before thee”[9]
The high priest, it is said, would utter the name and the assembled multitude of Israelites would prostrate themselves and respond “Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever” “Baruch shem Kavod malchuto le olam va ed”. This was the day when the sins of Israel would be covered by the actions of the high priest as recorded in Leviticus 16 and in the Mishnah section Yoma.[vii] The Mishnah, which although a late source can be used with critical comparison of other evidence to help us understand what happened regarding the name in the second temple period, also indicates that the name was used less and less after the reign of Simon the Just.[10] The use of the name was, according to the Mishnah restricted to the Temple area[11].
“How was the blessing of the priests carried out?...In the temple they pronounced the Name as written, but in the provinces with a substitute word”[12]
We have at least two other sources indicating the use of the name. The first, from the Mishnah, indicates that it was decreed that the name should be used in greeting one another in the temple. The second from the Tosefta Yad 20 indicates that the Pharisees and the Hemero Baptists (“early morning bathers”) have a dispute with one another as to which context the name could be used in. From these texts we have at least four traditions in the Second temple period indicating the use of the expressed name. It was used by Temple cult on Yom Kippor, in the Aaronic blessing, by the Pharisees and the Hemerobaptists at the time of immersion, by persons attending the temple and greeting one another, which drew its authority from the example of Boaz when he greeted his workers with “Yahwah Imacem” and they responded “Yeveraqa Yahwah”.[viii]. There is another context where it would appear the name was being used in the second temple period by a group clearly not agreeing with the ineffability of the name or the ban on the use of the name Yahwah. It is the document “Toldoth Yeshu”[ix] which was a parody of the gospels. In this account dated to the 2nd or 3rd century Yeshu is accused of obtaining the right pronunciation of the name Yahwah and using it to produce his miracles. Although the book is clearly Midrashic it indicates perhaps that Yeshua’s community, the Nazarenes, appear to have been using Yahwah’s name to produce miracles and they did not adhere to the ban by the temple cult in Jerusalem.[x]
With this background let us seek to see what light Josephus and Philo can throw on the situation.
TWO
We want to look at how Philo and Josephus deal with the passage in Exodus 3:10-15 where Yahwah reveals his eternal name to Moses. By looking at how each of them dealt with the episode and specifically the name, and setting this against the backdrop of late second temple period, we will see a little of what Philo and Josephus, were trying to do when they presented the episode and the name to their own particular audiences. This will give us a greater insight into how these two very prominent examples of classical period Jewish writers dealt with the idea of God having a name. We try through this to approach more closely to Hellenistic Jewish attitudes to the name Yahwah. We may then be able to make some judgment as to state of the ban on speaking the name in the life of Philo the Alexandrian and Josephus the Roman Pharisee.
The Septuagint Scripture reads:
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I am come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me: What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM [Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh (I will be that I will be)]: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you...The LORD [Yahwah] God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. [xi]
THREE
Josephus and the illegality of writing about the name Yahwah
Josephus covers the episode in Antiquities of the Jews II,12.4 written about CE 95, about 25 years after the destruction of the Temple[xii] . By then Yavneh would have been operating around 25 years and the decrees coming from there would no doubt have influenced Josephus thinking.[xiii] Up until that time the oral law was still unwritten and so it may be that his ban from speaking about the name came under the general restriction on writing down the non Torah laws.[13]
The dialogue is between Moses and Yahwah.
He entreated him to grant him that power when he should be in Egypt;
and besought him to vouch safe him the knowledge of his own name;
and since he had heard and seen him, he would also tell him his name,
that when he offered sacrifice he might invoke him by such his name in his oblations.
Whereupon God declared to him his holy name, which had never been discovered to men before. Concerning which it is not lawful for me to say anymore.
For Josephus the Tetragrammaton is God's own name[xiv], Moses desired knowledge of it for the purpose of offering sacrifices and to empower him when he entered Egypt. With the knowledge of the name Yahwah, came power and it was not revealed to just anyone[14], rather to one who had seen and heard Yahwah. Perhaps we see here a belief that the revelation of the knowledge of God's name is of greater import to the Jews of Josephus persuasion than seeing God and hearing the voice of God. Abraham and those after him have seen and heard God but for Josephus, presumably interpreting Exodus in the light of his first century communities tradition, God's name was first revealed to Moses. As for the contents of the discovery, Josephus is not permitted to divulge them, but clearly Josephus as an insider priest knows more than he is letting on. For some streams, of Judaism it was only in the temple that the name was permitted to be used according to its true pronunciation[xv]. This then restricted the use to the priestly families which seems to agree with Philo’s position below. Josephus in being a priest was most likely informed of most of the secrets regarding the name and would have been well aware of the law of the name in that period. It was not the case that the pronunciation was unknown but that it was forbidden outside the Temple.
If we observe Josephus first we find that he presents clear evidence that at the end of the first century AD, his Jewish community had some restrictions in discussing the divine name Yahwah. For he states "it is not lawful for me to say anymore". This would imply that his restriction is halakhic rather than logical, that is he is presenting a tradition still prevalent perhaps in the Judaism of Rome around AD 95 when he was writing his Antiquities even the Pre 70 Pharisaic Judaism of Palestine. The scope of the law he is referring to is clear regarding writing about the name[15]. For he says "It is not lawful for me to say anymore" So in Josephan Judaism around the time of Yavneh their is a restriction on writing about the subject of the name Yahwah. He does not mention the ban on speaking the name here although if his tradition banned him from writing in detail about the revelation of the name it would be likely to have some restriction on talking about the name. From this text we cannot be sure.[xvi]
We can ask the question: Why would it be unlawful to write or talk about the name and its revelation when the Scripture itself encourages by command and example for one to do both? In Scripture from the time of Moses right through to Jeremiah and perhaps even Malachi the name is freely written about and freely spoken. Moses and Pharoah, Hebrew and Gentile both use the name in their discussions. Indeed Yahwah says to Pharoah that he was raised up "so that my name may be declared [discussed] through out the earth "Ex 9:16). And then we have the passage in Isaiah 45 reflecting a universalist trend in Judaism of the day of the so called second Isaiah " For I am ...[Yahwah]… and there is none else. I have sworn by myself ...that to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear and they shall say, In [Yahwah] is righteousness and strength" A final example will suffice from the prayer of Solomon recorded in 1Kings 8 where he talks of the stranger who would hear of Yahwah's great name and would come to the house built for that name and pray that Yahwah would answer his prayer "that all the people on earth may know thy name". So we see here in the scripture from diverse times not only a desire for universalism but a desire that the very name Yahwah itself would be spoken and known among all nations of the earth. However people such as Ezra and Nehemiah would appear to represent a more isolationist view of the relationship of the gentiles to the God of Israel. Names which contain the name Yahwah abbreviated, such as Yahoshua ben Yehozadak, are Aramacised in their writings. Yehoshua becomes Yeshua and Yehozadak becomes Yozadak, the name is disappearing in this group and perhaps their sopherim descendants. The post exilic prophets, Zechariah and Haggai preserved the name in their writings. And it would appear to be the change of language as well as the isolationist tendency, which are leading to the removal of the name from the population. Whereas Jeremiah was made to protest
"Yea they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neigbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal"[xvii]
Josephus says 600 years later "Concerning this it is not lawful for me to say anymore". This I think is a problem which needs explaining. How is it that the scripture is so free with the use of the name Yahwah and post scriptural Judaism or more accurately perhaps middle to late second temple Judaism spent most of the time avoiding the name Yahwah in speech and in writing, so much so that the name was finally forgotten and the intention of the false prophets of Jeremiah's time was fulfilled and they could rejoice for the people did forget the name and insisted on keeping it forgotten by the law of tradition? They forget it not for Baal but for Adonai, Hashem, To On or Mar but they did forget it. Obviously this paper cannot give a complete answer but can present some evidence from the activities of Philo and Josephus.
Why then did Josephus consider it unlawful to write more about the name Yahwah?
Three reasons may reflect on this. Firstly a general Jewish post exilic attitude which began to treat the name as too holy to be spoken that is it was considered ineffable (Arretos). So blasphemy in Numbers is translated in the LXX as "naming the name, Yahwah" as opposed to blaspheming the name Yahwah. If we look at this another way, as the people of Israel were sent out of Israel out of the sight of Yahwah they began to see themselves as less and less holy and more like the other nations. This growing perception of their unholiness before Yahwah lead them to see that they were less and less worthy to utter his holy name, until the confession of the name for some groups was confined to the temple and the priesthood, which was built for the name. Clearly we can not impose this trend on the Essenes[16] or other groups who rejected the temple cult, but at least for what may have been main stream Judaism.
Secondly with the disapora came a mixing of religious ideas and the idea of ineffable name made its way into Judaism in the diaspora. The Babylonian god Marduk had an ineffable name. The talk of Josephus seems to reflect the talk of the mystery religions of that period. For example of Mithraism, Dionysious or the Eleusian mysteries where once initiated a body of secret teaching was only allowed to be discussed among the initiates. And so since Josephus was writing to the public he could not divulge more mysteries on the subject of the name. There were secret elements in the Biblical faith as well but the name Yahwah was not among them as a subject once it had been revealed it was revealed for all mankind to discuss as noted above.
The language then of Josephus in stating it was not lawful for him to write about the name other than stating it was revealed to Moses so that he could invoke Yahwah in worship and because he had heard and seen Yahwah, fits into the milieu of first century religious ideas of the mystery religions and the religions of Babylon and Persia which the Jews had come into contact with before returning to the land.
FOUR
Philo and the illogicality of the name
The Philo text we will look at is from On the Life of Moses Book I 74-64[17]
Moses said
If then they ask what is the name of him who sent thee,[ and if I know not what to re-
ply to them, shall I not seem to be deceiving them?"] And God said unto him "[At first] say unto them I am that I am, [that when they have learnt that there is a difference between him that is, and him that is not, they may be further taught that there is no name whatever that can be properly assigned to me, who am the only being to whom existence belongs. And if, inasmuch as they are weak in their natural abilities, they shall enquire further about my appellation tell them not only this one fact] that I am God, but also that I am God of [those men who derive their names from virtue,] that I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
(The italics are mine to emphasis where Philo departs from the text of Exodus)
In On the Life of Moses Bk III (p 253) Philo states in his description of the high priests clothing or Jewelry
And a golden leaf was wrought like a crown, having four names engraved on it which may only be mentioned or heard by holy men having their ears and their tongues by wisdom, and by no one else at all in any place whatsoever. And this holy prophet Moses calls the name, a name of four letters.
We have one other Philonic passages which is relevant to our observations. It is from About those whose Names are changed and why they have their Names changed. Here again we see Philo dealing with the Yahwah's revelation of his name to Moses:
It is a logical consequence that no personal name even can be properly assigned to the truly existent...Behold I shall go forth to the children of Israel , and shall say to them "The God of our Fathers has sent me to you, and they will ask me"What is his name? What shall I say to them? This you shall say to the children of Israel.'The Being [To On] has sent me to you. This you shall say to the sons of Israel....My nature is to be, not to be spoken". But so that " the human race should not totally lack a title to give the supreme goodness. He allows them to use by license of language, as though it were his proper name., the title Lord God of the three natural orders, teaching, perfection and practice...For this he says is my age long name...a memorial.
Philo's approach is very different to that of Josephus. For Josephus the name is given to Moses for sacrifices and to empower him to deliver the people from Egypt. For Philo it is given not because it is essentially connected to Yahwah’s holiness and his power but by “license of language” so that mankind will not lack title to call the existent (TO ON). For Philo the legal restrictions regarding writing about the name do not appear to be in force or at least he is either not bound by it or not aware of it. For he not only goes into an exposition of the name and it insignificance as a name but in his mind he goes above the name and explains that really the name is nothing to do with the true nature of the God of Israel but to do with the God of Plato who Philo's Moses informed. So what do we see here with Philo? If we ask ourselves what is Philo doing in these three passages or at least the two which deal directly with Exodus 3:15-20 we come to the conclusion that he is transforming the God of Israel into the image of the god of the Philosophers. And not only that but Moses himself, is transformed into a different Moses. It rather reminds us of the Apostles Paul’s understanding in 2 Corinthians that there were groups influencing that Church which were preaching another Jesus over against the one they had received. What then is the evidence that Philo is transforming the God of the physical men, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob into the God of philosophical concepts eclectically drawn together by Philo from the educational context in which he grew up and was educated? We will look at these presently but we should just observe that it is held by some scholars that The Life of Moses was written for educated Gentiles who were clearly philosophically inclined and perhaps interested in Philo's Alexandrian Judaism. Secondly the treatise on name changes was for a more advanced group and probably for a group of philosophically inclined Jews.
In The Life of Moses Philo first lays down the basis for his transformation of the God of the Bible into the image of the god of the Philosophers. He picks up on the LXX statement "Ego eimi ho on", "I am He who is" which translated "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" "I will be what I will be or I am that I am", he was working from a translation and it is held by many scholars that his knowledge of Hebrew was scant[18]. So this emphasis on eternal existence which the LXX lay down for Philo helped his work very much. His next stage is to place Philonic philosphical words into the mouth of God. So Moses is to tell Israel that "I am He who is" sent him to them so "that they may learn the difference between what is and what is not". That is as opposed to the goal which Yahwah has set for the operation, vis a vis, to set his people free from the burden of the Egyptian house of bondage. So Philo would have Yahwah give a lesson in philosophy not so much be the God who says to Moses "Ki Ehyeh Imaq", "Certainly I will be with you " (Ex 3:12). Philo’s dependence on the LXX text perhaps can be partially blamed for his seeing that the first thing Yahwah wanted Moses to do was to give the people a lesson in philosophy. Josephus as we noticed saw that the name was linked with the empowering of Moses to do his job.
The second lesson Philo's transformed God gives to the people was that his name was in reality not connected to him at all. Why? Because existence belongs to him, Philo is supported by some scholars who see in “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh” a hesitation in assigning a proper name to God. However the evidence of the rest of the Pentateuch and the Prophets and Psalms would seem to militate against this interpretation. From the text it is clear Moses was not sent to give a philosophy lesson in existence to Israel. He was sent in the authority of the name Yahwah to deliver that people of Israel from their suffering. Philo gives a more detailed argument against a name being assigned to his transformed deity in his treatise on changed names. In this case he perceives the difficulty he is going to have in turning what the Scripture clearly reveals as a proper name of God into a “pretend proper” name which Moses uses as though it were his proper name. We may well wonder what exactly is Philo's objection to the very clear teaching of scripture regarding the name Yahwah? And clearly it is tied to his education in Greek and Hellenistic culture and the fact that to his mind To On and Name do not go together. And Philo appears to define his God as one who can never be seen by his very nature. And the example he creates is Moses seeking to see the glory of Yahwah in Ex 34 and the fact that he was only permitted to see God back parts or what is “below the Existent” , not the Existent itself. And so because man does not have in mind or sense the organ needs to see the Existent no name can be properly assigned. In fact the text of Exodus 34 does not say no man can see Yahwah. It says no man can see Yahwah’s face and live. Philo prepared this argument before he got to the revelation of the name to Moses to explain away the fact that Yahwah himself gave himself a personal name. For Philo the God of the Bible did not properly assign this name for this is a logically impossibility according to his assumptions and deductions. So the God of Philo gives a name which is really not his name but just so that mankind not just Israel, may not lack a title to call him by. Even in giving this name that he may be called by he is said to give a lesson in the inappropriateness of applying a name to him. For along with the name God is made to give the lesson "My nature is to be, not to be spoken of". But we may ask Philo why did Yahwah raise up Pharoah? And the Scriptural answer is that his (God’s) name would be discussed all over the earth. And why did Solomon pray that strangers would come to Israel for the sake of the name Yahwah and on having their prayer answered return to there nations and tell people about the great God Yahwah. For Philo these plans of the God and the people of the Bible are removed leaving a God whose nature is not to be spoken of.
It appears to me that Philo was flying in the face of the Scriptures he studied mainly because of the people he was seeking to teach and those who had taught him. But this doesn’t go half way in explaining his transformation of the God and the message of Scripture revealing God’s name. Whereas the Scripture teaches that Yahwah is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, people with physical descendants, for Philo these three become symbols of three philosophical concepts, teaching, perfection and practice[19] used in Greek education to discuss virtue. Whereas most commentators understand that the name Yahwah is given forever[20], Philo reads that it meant only the age of human existence, as though that made the name less useful or less valuable. Whereas Yahwah gives the name as a memorial which the Psalmists sing about, the prophets prophesy by authority of, and which was a means to bring the God of Israel remembrance from generation to generation or even to all generations, indeed the name of Yahwah is a strong tower which the righteous can run into for salvation; Philo re reads it as being limited to mortal humans with memories and apprehension not as a blessing for the nation. So what is Philo doing in the examples in this passage? I believe here he is reading the scripture with the eyes and mindset only of a speculative moral philosopher who is pondering the universe and it beginnings and its eternity. This is as opposed to for example one who reads it as a recipient of the blessing of receiving God’s name to help him remember him and call upon him and praise him. Philo is doing eisegesis with the text. He did not focus on the Psalms and the prophets, and it is they where the name Yahwah is continually hymned, praised and lifted up. Philo does not lift up the name of Yahwah in anyway shape or form. For to him we should "Think it not a hard saying that the Highest of all things should be unnameable". We can see Philo is coming up against opposition either among his students or in his own mind. If his own mind it is perhaps as one scholar has said, that he could not harmonise his thinking on this issue and could not get his mind around the fact that in the Scripture God clearly assigns a proper name to himself, with more importance than merely “license of language”. Ultimately Philo’s transformation of the God of the Bible to a God of his philosophy is complete when he re ranks Yahwah from highest personal name to perhaps at least third down the line. At the same time there is an implication that he is thinking of the name Adonai or Kurious not Yahwah. For he states "The Lord was seen of Abraham...we must think of it as the manifestation of one of the Potencies which attend him, the Potency of Kingship, for the title Lord betokens sovereignty and kingship...And therefore the words are "The Lord (not "the Existent [To On]...But the Sovereignty when manifested confers on him a still higher gift on him who see's and hears him. He says to him, "I am thy God". So perhaps we see that the name Yahwah is an attendant of "To On" and an inferior revelation to "thy God". How does this complete Philo's transformation of God. We see To On is according to one source not used of God in the whole LXX. It is Plato's title of his God. So Philo places Yahwah as inferior to another which, doesn't not fit with the scripture which teaches in Psalm 96 that he is above all Elohim. And perhaps in Isaiah 42 which states "I am Yahwah that is my name I will not give my glory to another nor my praise to graven images". It would truly appear that Yahwah and Philo disagree as to his nature and his name. We are not sure if Philo read Yahwah as opposed to Kurios in his texts, Dahl and Segal argue he read Kurios from his etymological meanderings. Royse 1991 argues he read the Tetragrammaton but commented on the spoken Kurios from his reader. I can but agree with the Jewish Encyclopedia article “Philo”, that although Philo was brilliant and well read in scripture and Philosophy and a Jew considered orthodox in his community
“ Philo formed his language by extensive reading of the classics, He had resemblances to Plato, phrases from Aristotle, from Attic orators and historians…”
And I also agree with The Cambridge History of Judaism in describing his eclectic thought
“Platonism and Aristotlelianism were combined with Stoicism, numerical symbolism, amongst other ideas”(p880)
And it was the influence of all this Greek Philosophy which lead him to transform the nature of the God of the Bible from a God with many attributes to one with no attributes. So that the Jewish Encyclopedia could conclude “It is evident that this [God] is not the God of the Old testament, but the idea of Plato designated as Theos…In the Bible God is incessantly active in the world, is filled with Zeal, is moved by repentance, and comes to aid his people; He is therefore entirely different from the God described by Philo”.
But did Philo slavishly take his ideas from the Greek philosophies which preceded him? Or did he make his own contribution? From the study of Wolfson[21] it would appear he also had his own concepts, neither from the Greek culture nor from the Tradition of the Jewish Elders of Alexandria.
For says Wolfson “In none of the extent Greek philosophic literature prior to Philo are the terms ‘unnameable’, ‘ineffable’, and ‘incomprehensible’ in terms of incomprehensibility by the mind, occur as predication of God” (p 66). By making his name known to Moses, Yahwah was bring Moses into a very special privilege. In the Psalms there are blessing to the one who knows Yahwah’s name as we can see from the end of Psalm 91. But as Wolfson states further Philo’s God “Cannot be defined and cannot be known” (p66). We see then that although Yahwah sets it out as a desiratum that his people would know his name, Philo because of his background and desire to spread his Judaism to the Gentile world around him and his love for Greek philosophy conclude that God’s plan for then to “all know me from the least of them to the greatest” it logically impossible and his terminology needs to be explained away.
CONCLUSION
Why then would Philo feel compelled to wrestle so much to reinterpret the plan meaning of scripture? And the answer has to be away from the temple away from the land and in a philosophical culture and considering himself a spokesman he tried to bridge two world views. Unfortunately it would appear that the Hellenistic not the Biblical thought pattern overruled and so foundational teaching of scripture are undermined and an imaginary God of the Philosophers perhaps the ideal of Plato the To On even perhaps the supreme Good replaces Yahwah the living God of Israel. And compared to his contemporary Josephus, Philo is far more original as a Jew, only Aristobulos really preceded him, and perhaps far more daring but perhaps much further away from the Biblical God of the prophets even Yahwah. It would appear then that Josephus’s traditions and Philo’s philosophy lead them both away from the Biblical or Mosaic, Davidic and Prophetic attitude to the name Yahwah. Philo took his path as an individual and Josephus from his enigmatic position as a Priest and a Pharisee. In their writings they had to the evidence of an attitude to the name of God which though designed to show respect and honor to God’s name actually dishonored it by disobeying the clear injunction of the scriptures and ignoring the clear examples of the Biblical Israel and the prophets. Philo has wandered further from the path of the Scripture mainly due to his desire to make the God of the Bible palatable to the philosophers of his period.
Notes
[1] See Bruce FF, Israel and the Nations
[2] See Esther 1
[3] Because of the Tradition in the Letter of Aristeas, Philo and even Josephus and Rabbinic literature that it was translated by 70 or 72 Rabbis or in 70 days.
[4] See Jewish Encyclopedia “Philo”
[5] Grabbe. L., Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (Atlanta:Brown Judaic Studies 115 Scholar Press) p 78
[6] See Jacob Neusner : Judaism as Philosophy and Dillon The Middle Platonists from 80 BC to 220 AD
[7] According to the Mishnah the Pharisee is one who was particularly strict in applying the rules of Tithing and Cleannesses. The New Testament refers to them a lot and Josephus mentions them in both his Antiquities and his Jewish War
[8] In Aramaic speaking synagogues Mar or Maran was substituted in Greek speaking synagogues Kurious was substituted and in Hebrew speaking communities Adonai or Hashem was substituted all to avoid using the proper name God had granted his people.
[9] Mihnah Yomah 3:8 p113 Lipman, E., The Mishnah, Oral Traditions of Judaism, New York, Schocken Books ,1970
[10] We can not point exactly to which Simeon is being referred to the one who officiated around 300BC or the or Simeon the Hasmonean.
[11] At least the Mishanh indicates that among the Jewish Rabbis of the second and early third century there were a number of traditions indicating that whilst the second temple stood the Tetragrammaton was in use in its precincts.
[12] Lipman ibid 183
[13] See Jews, God, and History, Max Dimont for more discussion of this situation.
[15] The Encyclopedia Talmudica has an interesting article on divine names and the rules regulating the writing the names. Especially those which were not allowed to be erased and so could not be written in letters etc.
[16] The Qumran covenants also had rules restricting the use of the name
[17] , Ed Glazer, The Essential Philo
[18] See Grabbe. L., Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation, The Hebrew Names in Philo, Brown Judaic Studies, Atlanta: Scholar Press.
[19] Plutarch who is compared to Philo by Grabbe, chose three other men to exemplify the three principles, Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato.
[20] N
[21] Wolfson. H.A., Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Cambridge Massachusets: Harvard 1947
[i] For a review of the evidence see The Jewish Encyclopedia, “Tetragrammaton” And see Gedalyahu Alon’s “The Expressed Name” in Jews, Judaism and the Classical World.
[ii] Grabbe L Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation, The Hebrew Names in Philo, Brown Judaic Studies, Atlanta: Scholar Press
[iii] This is related in the Mishnah and the evidence from Philo and Josephus we will look at in this paper has is a part of the evidence for this neglect of the name Yahwah.
[iv] In the 6th century BC Yahwah spoke to Jeremiah saying there was a group in Israel who were trying to make his people forget his name for their dreams as they had previously forgotten it for Baal,.Isaiah 64 also says that no one was stirring themselves to seek his name. Finally Malachi seems to show a great disrespect for the name Yahwah and their the prophet indicates the name will become great among the gentiles. There is also prophets who warns of a time when people would be afraid to speak the name Yahwah.
[v] A. H Sayce Religion of the Ancient Babylonians p 4.
[vi] See Exodus 6-9.
[vii] JE “Tetragrammaton” Indicates that the authorities were seeking to keep the usage of the name only to the temple. However the failure to succeed in this is shown by the fact that they were still making decrees about the ban on the name even up until the 10th century.
[viii] A discussion of these issues can be read in G Alon Jews, Judaism and the Classical World 1977, “The Expressed Name”
[ix] See Schonfield The Gospel of the Hebrews. And Smith note 10 below
[x] Morton Smiths Jesus the Magician, indicates that fact that many of the outside of the community of the Way or the Nazarenes accused Jesus of doing his miracles by the use of the name spoken according to its true pronunciation although this went against the ban on the name.
[xi] Exod 3:14-15
[xii] p59 Transl. Whiston, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications
[xiii] Who knows Yahwah had said that when he punished Israel it would not do his reputation any good in sight of the nations who would say that he could not keep them in the land. Perhaps by banning the name the Rabbi’s had felt they could avoid bring so much shame on their God.
[xiv] Here we can contrast Philo the philosopher who does not believe it logically possible for his God to have a proper name, for name are accidental not essential and God’s essence for Philo is unknowable. Not withstanding the fact that Yahwah prophesied through Jeremiah, they shall all know me from the least to the greatest”.Jer 31
[xv] Even the Qumran covenanters had a restriction on the usage of the name. Suggesting perhaps that the split was in effect before the middle of the second century BC when the group took to the wilderness as a voice in the wilderness. But how is it that we have no clear record as to when this ban or restriction first took effect?
[xvi] It is possible that talking was permitted where writing was not for the Oral law had not yet been written and one reason for this according to Dimont was to ensure it did not compete with the written Torah. It is also a way of protecting the religion by keeping it from taking a permanent form which could fall into the hands of any one. In this respect not being permitted to write anymore would not automatically mean he was not permitted to speak more, indeed it implies that in the right context he could say more. This whole practice smacks of the practice of the Mystery religions prevalent in the antiquity in the Roman empire. Here initiates were sworn to secrecy after initiation. They could not divulge the secrets of the cultus to outsiders on pain of great curses. The very terminology of Josephus smacks of this practice. See Kittel Theological Word Dictionary of the New Testament “Mysterion”
[xvii] Jer 23-24
Bibliography
Alon, G., Jews, Judaism and the Classical World The Magnes Press Hebrew University 1977
Bruce. F., Israel and the Nations
"Baptism", The Jewish Encyclopedia New York Funk and Wagnals, 499-500) MDCCCC11
Dahl, N. A., and Segal, A.F., "Philo and the Rabbis on the names of God", Journal for the study of Judaism Vol 9 1978
Drummond, j.., Philo Judaeus- The Jewish Alexandrian Philosophy in its development and completion 1888, Willams and Nargate 1888
Feldman, L and Reinhold, M., Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans, (Edinburgh T&T Clark) 1996
Fitzmyer J.A. Essays on the Semitic Background to the New Testament, Missoula: SBL and Scholars Press
Grabbe. L., Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation, The Hebrew Names in Philo, Brown Judaic Studies, Atlanta: Scholar Press.
"God" in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics ed Hastings, J., T and T Clark 1925-26
Inge “Alexandrian Theology” ., Encylopedia of Religion and Ethics ed Hastings. J ., T and T Clark 1925-26
Josephus, F., The Complete Works of Josephus, Trans Whiston, W., (Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1981)
Kittel Theological Word Dictionary of the New Testament “Mysterion”
Lipman, E., The Mishnah, Oral Traditions of Judaism, New York, Schocken Books ,1970
Stone, M., “Philo of Alexandria” Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period ed. Stone, M., (Philadelphia, Van Gocrum AssenFortress Press, 1984
Kahle, P. E., The Cairo Geniza (Oxford) 1959 (from Royse 1991)
Apocryphal Books Letter of Aristeas tran and Ed Thackeray, 1904 London
Metzger, B.M., Manuscripts of the Greek Bible (New York: Oxford) 1981
Philo of Alexandria tran: Colson F. H., Whittaker, G. H., Loeb Classical Library, London : W Heineman
Royse, J., "Philo, Kurios and the Tetragrammaton", The Studia Philonica Annual 1991 Vol 3
Schonfield The Gospel of the Hebrews
Smith M, Jesus the Magician London V Gollancz, 1978
Stern,M. Greek and Latin Authors on Jew and Judaism, .3 Vols (1974-1984)
"Tetragrammaton", The Jewish Encyclopedia New York Funk and Wagnals, 499-500) MDCCCC11
The Mishnah, Trans, Danby, H., (London : OUP, 1933)
The Essential Philo, Ed. Glatzer Nachum, N. (New York: Schocken)
Wolfson. H.A., Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Cambridge Massachusets: Harvard 1947
Purpose
How does the attitude and teaching of Philo and Josephus differ from that represented by the Bible in relation the Tetragrammaton? Were there departures from the Biblical approach caused by traditions of their own community or their own logic applied to the text? Were they using eisegesis or exegesis when they approached the text? Was their God the same as the God of the Tanakh? This paper is intended to take a look into these types of questions. The focus will specifically compare there approach to Exodus 3:14-17 and to see if this can help us understand if and why they depart from the plain meaning of the Biblical text.
The Historical Context
During the whole period of Biblical History from the time of Moses until the time of Judah’s exile to Babylon in 586 BC the use of the Tetragrammaton in the daily life of the people of Israel was expected, legislated and practiced. It was used in Psalms to praise Yahwah, whether in Tabernacle or Temple or just King David singing Yahwah’s praises whilst shepherding. It was used as part of a greeting between a farmer and his laborers as we see in the book of Ruth with Boaz and his laborers. Boaz greeted them “Yahwah be with you”, they responded Yahwah bless you. They were not in a temple nor in a synagogue but in the fields. They were not in Jerusalem or any particular holy city. But they greeted one another with the name Yahwah and no substitute. It was put on the people of Israel by the words of Cohenim in the blessing in Numbers. In 722 BC the Northern Kingdom of Israel were deported to Assyria by Sennacherib. In 586 BC the Southern Kingdom, Judah, was destroyed and the leaders moved to the region of Babylon. There in the east the people of Israel came under the influence of Babylonian and Assyrian cultures and began to forget Hebrew and speak Aramaic, so that around a century and a half later after some returned Ezra needed interpreters for the people to understand when he read the Torah in Hebrew. Cyrus took over Babylon in 538 BC and permitted the return of Jews to Israel and for the next two centuries the people of Israel came under the influence of the Persia’s Zoroastrian culture. The name Yahwah began to disappear from usage and we see in the Aramaic transliteration of names in Ezra and Nehemiah that names containing parts of the Tetragrammaton were shortened and the name disappeared. Yeho-shua became Yeshua, Yeho-zadak became Yozadak, Yahwah became Mar. In or around 586 BC a group of Jews also settled in Egypt, in direct disobedience to Yahwah’s instructions through Jeremiah the prophet, and they began to shorten the name and combine it with the names of Egyptian idols such as Anath, as we can see from the Elephantine papyri[1].
By 323 BC the Greeks under Alexander of Macedon had created and empire, across from Greece to India. They had conquered the whole of the Persian Empire, which had stretched from India to Ethiopia.[2] Alexander’s policy of joining his Hellenic culture with the local cultures around the world and of building Greek cities all over Asia and at the same time respecting the religious beliefs of those he conquered lead to another massive influence on the Jewish communities and their belief systems. With his death and the division of his empire among his four of his Generals began the Hellenistic period. He built a city call Alexandria in Egypt and Jews were invited to settle there and they did so in large numbers. The descendants of Ptolemy (one of his four generals) gained the rule the Egypt. And within 50 years the Greek language had began to displace Hebrew or Aramaic in the Jewish population and the time came when the Jewish community would make a translation of their Hebrew and Aramaic scripture into Greek. This is accepted as taking place in the reign of Ptolemy II Philopater. This was the first translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language and was greeted with some fanfare according to traditions represented in the Letter of Aristeas and Philo. This translation has become known as the Septuagint or the LXX.[3]For the next century and a half this was the Torah and finally the Bible of the Greek speaking Jewish world. Writers such as Aristobulos of Alexandria[4] began to apply Greek hermeneutical practices to the Biblical text. Especially to difficult teachings of texts, the techniques the Greeks had used to interpret the follies and iniquities of the gods in Homer’s writings began to be applied to difficulties in the LXX. Everything became open to a deeper meaning and the book became a book of allegories instead of historical and literal truth. This was not surprising because these Jews had willingly settled in Egypt the very place God had said they would return to only as his judgment on their rebellion against his Torah in Deuteronomy. Allegory was a very good tool to justify the anomaly of their position “ It is among the Greeks that we first find the use of allegory that compares in anyway with that of Philo” [5] Finally the Greeks were succeeded by the Romans as the rulers of the regions. But the intellectual world remained Hellenistic and ruled by Greek thinking and the philosophies for at least another two centuries. The philosophies of the Greeks including the teaching of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans the Sophists, the Middle Platonists, the Peripateticians and neo Pythagorans all became very popular among Jews and non Jews alike and the period into which Philo was born is called by some the Middle Platonist period. Middle Platonism was a very eclectic philosophical school taking a little from the various schools around about[6]. Philo was a child of this whole Hellenistic education as well as a child of the cultural Judaism of Alexandria. The Jews of this period in Palestine were also influenced by the various cultures and religions they had come into contact with. The Egyptians and Babylonian and Persians all had concepts of ineffable names of deities as we shall see later.
With the revolt against the rule of the Seleucids which took place in Palestine, during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the cultural background of Josephus began to be shaped. The Pharisees, a lay political and religious movement, focused on a respect for Oral tradition, the Prophets and the Torah, and the Saducees a priestly political movement who only accepted the Torah arose in this period. And with all these influences the background was laid for the beliefs of both Philo the Alexandrian and Josephus the Pharisee.[7]
Philo and Josephus were living in the [i]Hellenistic period of European and Asian history. They both used Greek and Josephus had understanding of Aramaic and Hebrew as well, but Philo appears not to have had too much understanding of Hebrew[ii]. There are traditions among some sectors of second temple Judaism that the Tetragrammaton or the name Yahwah should not be used in the daily life of faithful of the Jewish communities at that period.[iii] Indeed in the various kinds of Synagogues whether Aramaic, Greek or Hebrew speaking, euphemisms were used to avoid using the Tetragrammaton[8]. The evidence indicates that the ban on the use of the name was by no means universal and there were some Jewish communities who did not adhere to the ban. It is very difficult to ascertain when various sects among the Hebrews began to ban the use of the name, however the use of euphemisms for Yahwah is evident from the Psalms such as Psalm 14 and 53 where Elohim is substituted for Yahwah. It is clear that this was a custom which gradually crept in as the Jewish community got further and further away from the prophetic faith of pre exilic Judaism and the neglect of the name, through a misunderstanding of the meaning of its holiness, can be seen as a fulfillment of what Jeremiah saw happening in the Jewish community of his day.[iv]
We will look a little at the evidence from the period indicating the extent of the use of the Tetragrammaton and then we will contextualise our writers and then look at relevant Philonic and Josephan texts to see their attitude to the name as reflected in approach to Exodus 3 and the call of Moses and to ascertain if the ban was in effect in their particular Jewish communities. Philo was from Alexandria and part of the allegorical school and Josephus from Palestine and claimed to be of the sect of the Pharisees. We will also observe how Philo’s attitude almost points to a transformation of the God of Israel into a God in Philo’s own desired image.
ONE
The Tetragrammaton Context
The idea of ineffable divine names has been traced back to Egypt and the cult of Isis and Ra. The actual dating of the ban on the Tetragrammaton is apparently uncertain. The Jewish Encylopedia article “Tetragrammaton” lists a number of scholars with differing ideas as to when and where the ban originated. It is however somewhere between the Babylonian Exile and the Hellenistic period. The Jewish literature we have in the second temple period indicate that there was a ban in some circles but as stated above it was not adhered in all circles. Legge, in his Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity p 37 states “The ineffability of the divine names was an old idea in Egypt, especially in the Osirian religion, where it forms the base of the story of Ra and Isis. So the name of Osiris himself was said to be was said to be ineffable…The name Marduk of Babylon is in the same way declared ineffable in an inscription of Neri…The name Yahweh became ineffable directly after Alexander. …In every case a magical idea that the god might be compelled by utterance of his secret name seems to be the root of the practice”.
However the source of the ban could have been Babylon for the pronunciation of divine names was guarded in the Babylonian mystery cults “ the true pronunciation of divine names was carefully hidden from the uninitiated multitudes.” [v]Clearly it is likely to come from a source somewhere in the diaspora for the Scriptures have a ban on the pronunciation of names of “elohim acherim” and many express commands indicating the need to call on the name Yahwah and even as Moses clashed with Pharoah they both used the divine name[vi].
The use of the Tetragrammaton in the Hellenistic Period
If we were transported back in time to the first century AD and to Jerusalem, Israel and to the great day of the fast of Yom ha Kipporim we are told by some Jewish sources originating in that period that on that day the high priest would pronounce the name of the God of Israel, Yahwah, according to its letters. During his intercession we are told that he would use the name 10 times on that day. The words of the high priest are recorded in Mishnah Yoma 3:8, 4:2 and 6:2.
“O God[Yahwah] I Have committed iniquities, I have transgressed, I have sinned before thee, I an my house. O God [Yahwah], forgive the iniquities and transgressions and the sins which I have and transgressed and sinned before thee”[9]
The high priest, it is said, would utter the name and the assembled multitude of Israelites would prostrate themselves and respond “Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever” “Baruch shem Kavod malchuto le olam va ed”. This was the day when the sins of Israel would be covered by the actions of the high priest as recorded in Leviticus 16 and in the Mishnah section Yoma.[vii] The Mishnah, which although a late source can be used with critical comparison of other evidence to help us understand what happened regarding the name in the second temple period, also indicates that the name was used less and less after the reign of Simon the Just.[10] The use of the name was, according to the Mishnah restricted to the Temple area[11].
“How was the blessing of the priests carried out?...In the temple they pronounced the Name as written, but in the provinces with a substitute word”[12]
We have at least two other sources indicating the use of the name. The first, from the Mishnah, indicates that it was decreed that the name should be used in greeting one another in the temple. The second from the Tosefta Yad 20 indicates that the Pharisees and the Hemero Baptists (“early morning bathers”) have a dispute with one another as to which context the name could be used in. From these texts we have at least four traditions in the Second temple period indicating the use of the expressed name. It was used by Temple cult on Yom Kippor, in the Aaronic blessing, by the Pharisees and the Hemerobaptists at the time of immersion, by persons attending the temple and greeting one another, which drew its authority from the example of Boaz when he greeted his workers with “Yahwah Imacem” and they responded “Yeveraqa Yahwah”.[viii]. There is another context where it would appear the name was being used in the second temple period by a group clearly not agreeing with the ineffability of the name or the ban on the use of the name Yahwah. It is the document “Toldoth Yeshu”[ix] which was a parody of the gospels. In this account dated to the 2nd or 3rd century Yeshu is accused of obtaining the right pronunciation of the name Yahwah and using it to produce his miracles. Although the book is clearly Midrashic it indicates perhaps that Yeshua’s community, the Nazarenes, appear to have been using Yahwah’s name to produce miracles and they did not adhere to the ban by the temple cult in Jerusalem.[x]
With this background let us seek to see what light Josephus and Philo can throw on the situation.
TWO
We want to look at how Philo and Josephus deal with the passage in Exodus 3:10-15 where Yahwah reveals his eternal name to Moses. By looking at how each of them dealt with the episode and specifically the name, and setting this against the backdrop of late second temple period, we will see a little of what Philo and Josephus, were trying to do when they presented the episode and the name to their own particular audiences. This will give us a greater insight into how these two very prominent examples of classical period Jewish writers dealt with the idea of God having a name. We try through this to approach more closely to Hellenistic Jewish attitudes to the name Yahwah. We may then be able to make some judgment as to state of the ban on speaking the name in the life of Philo the Alexandrian and Josephus the Roman Pharisee.
The Septuagint Scripture reads:
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I am come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me: What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM [Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh (I will be that I will be)]: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you...The LORD [Yahwah] God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. [xi]
THREE
Josephus and the illegality of writing about the name Yahwah
Josephus covers the episode in Antiquities of the Jews II,12.4 written about CE 95, about 25 years after the destruction of the Temple[xii] . By then Yavneh would have been operating around 25 years and the decrees coming from there would no doubt have influenced Josephus thinking.[xiii] Up until that time the oral law was still unwritten and so it may be that his ban from speaking about the name came under the general restriction on writing down the non Torah laws.[13]
The dialogue is between Moses and Yahwah.
He entreated him to grant him that power when he should be in Egypt;
and besought him to vouch safe him the knowledge of his own name;
and since he had heard and seen him, he would also tell him his name,
that when he offered sacrifice he might invoke him by such his name in his oblations.
Whereupon God declared to him his holy name, which had never been discovered to men before. Concerning which it is not lawful for me to say anymore.
For Josephus the Tetragrammaton is God's own name[xiv], Moses desired knowledge of it for the purpose of offering sacrifices and to empower him when he entered Egypt. With the knowledge of the name Yahwah, came power and it was not revealed to just anyone[14], rather to one who had seen and heard Yahwah. Perhaps we see here a belief that the revelation of the knowledge of God's name is of greater import to the Jews of Josephus persuasion than seeing God and hearing the voice of God. Abraham and those after him have seen and heard God but for Josephus, presumably interpreting Exodus in the light of his first century communities tradition, God's name was first revealed to Moses. As for the contents of the discovery, Josephus is not permitted to divulge them, but clearly Josephus as an insider priest knows more than he is letting on. For some streams, of Judaism it was only in the temple that the name was permitted to be used according to its true pronunciation[xv]. This then restricted the use to the priestly families which seems to agree with Philo’s position below. Josephus in being a priest was most likely informed of most of the secrets regarding the name and would have been well aware of the law of the name in that period. It was not the case that the pronunciation was unknown but that it was forbidden outside the Temple.
If we observe Josephus first we find that he presents clear evidence that at the end of the first century AD, his Jewish community had some restrictions in discussing the divine name Yahwah. For he states "it is not lawful for me to say anymore". This would imply that his restriction is halakhic rather than logical, that is he is presenting a tradition still prevalent perhaps in the Judaism of Rome around AD 95 when he was writing his Antiquities even the Pre 70 Pharisaic Judaism of Palestine. The scope of the law he is referring to is clear regarding writing about the name[15]. For he says "It is not lawful for me to say anymore" So in Josephan Judaism around the time of Yavneh their is a restriction on writing about the subject of the name Yahwah. He does not mention the ban on speaking the name here although if his tradition banned him from writing in detail about the revelation of the name it would be likely to have some restriction on talking about the name. From this text we cannot be sure.[xvi]
We can ask the question: Why would it be unlawful to write or talk about the name and its revelation when the Scripture itself encourages by command and example for one to do both? In Scripture from the time of Moses right through to Jeremiah and perhaps even Malachi the name is freely written about and freely spoken. Moses and Pharoah, Hebrew and Gentile both use the name in their discussions. Indeed Yahwah says to Pharoah that he was raised up "so that my name may be declared [discussed] through out the earth "Ex 9:16). And then we have the passage in Isaiah 45 reflecting a universalist trend in Judaism of the day of the so called second Isaiah " For I am ...[Yahwah]… and there is none else. I have sworn by myself ...that to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear and they shall say, In [Yahwah] is righteousness and strength" A final example will suffice from the prayer of Solomon recorded in 1Kings 8 where he talks of the stranger who would hear of Yahwah's great name and would come to the house built for that name and pray that Yahwah would answer his prayer "that all the people on earth may know thy name". So we see here in the scripture from diverse times not only a desire for universalism but a desire that the very name Yahwah itself would be spoken and known among all nations of the earth. However people such as Ezra and Nehemiah would appear to represent a more isolationist view of the relationship of the gentiles to the God of Israel. Names which contain the name Yahwah abbreviated, such as Yahoshua ben Yehozadak, are Aramacised in their writings. Yehoshua becomes Yeshua and Yehozadak becomes Yozadak, the name is disappearing in this group and perhaps their sopherim descendants. The post exilic prophets, Zechariah and Haggai preserved the name in their writings. And it would appear to be the change of language as well as the isolationist tendency, which are leading to the removal of the name from the population. Whereas Jeremiah was made to protest
"Yea they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neigbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal"[xvii]
Josephus says 600 years later "Concerning this it is not lawful for me to say anymore". This I think is a problem which needs explaining. How is it that the scripture is so free with the use of the name Yahwah and post scriptural Judaism or more accurately perhaps middle to late second temple Judaism spent most of the time avoiding the name Yahwah in speech and in writing, so much so that the name was finally forgotten and the intention of the false prophets of Jeremiah's time was fulfilled and they could rejoice for the people did forget the name and insisted on keeping it forgotten by the law of tradition? They forget it not for Baal but for Adonai, Hashem, To On or Mar but they did forget it. Obviously this paper cannot give a complete answer but can present some evidence from the activities of Philo and Josephus.
Why then did Josephus consider it unlawful to write more about the name Yahwah?
Three reasons may reflect on this. Firstly a general Jewish post exilic attitude which began to treat the name as too holy to be spoken that is it was considered ineffable (Arretos). So blasphemy in Numbers is translated in the LXX as "naming the name, Yahwah" as opposed to blaspheming the name Yahwah. If we look at this another way, as the people of Israel were sent out of Israel out of the sight of Yahwah they began to see themselves as less and less holy and more like the other nations. This growing perception of their unholiness before Yahwah lead them to see that they were less and less worthy to utter his holy name, until the confession of the name for some groups was confined to the temple and the priesthood, which was built for the name. Clearly we can not impose this trend on the Essenes[16] or other groups who rejected the temple cult, but at least for what may have been main stream Judaism.
Secondly with the disapora came a mixing of religious ideas and the idea of ineffable name made its way into Judaism in the diaspora. The Babylonian god Marduk had an ineffable name. The talk of Josephus seems to reflect the talk of the mystery religions of that period. For example of Mithraism, Dionysious or the Eleusian mysteries where once initiated a body of secret teaching was only allowed to be discussed among the initiates. And so since Josephus was writing to the public he could not divulge more mysteries on the subject of the name. There were secret elements in the Biblical faith as well but the name Yahwah was not among them as a subject once it had been revealed it was revealed for all mankind to discuss as noted above.
The language then of Josephus in stating it was not lawful for him to write about the name other than stating it was revealed to Moses so that he could invoke Yahwah in worship and because he had heard and seen Yahwah, fits into the milieu of first century religious ideas of the mystery religions and the religions of Babylon and Persia which the Jews had come into contact with before returning to the land.
FOUR
Philo and the illogicality of the name
The Philo text we will look at is from On the Life of Moses Book I 74-64[17]
Moses said
If then they ask what is the name of him who sent thee,[ and if I know not what to re-
ply to them, shall I not seem to be deceiving them?"] And God said unto him "[At first] say unto them I am that I am, [that when they have learnt that there is a difference between him that is, and him that is not, they may be further taught that there is no name whatever that can be properly assigned to me, who am the only being to whom existence belongs. And if, inasmuch as they are weak in their natural abilities, they shall enquire further about my appellation tell them not only this one fact] that I am God, but also that I am God of [those men who derive their names from virtue,] that I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
(The italics are mine to emphasis where Philo departs from the text of Exodus)
In On the Life of Moses Bk III (p 253) Philo states in his description of the high priests clothing or Jewelry
And a golden leaf was wrought like a crown, having four names engraved on it which may only be mentioned or heard by holy men having their ears and their tongues by wisdom, and by no one else at all in any place whatsoever. And this holy prophet Moses calls the name, a name of four letters.
We have one other Philonic passages which is relevant to our observations. It is from About those whose Names are changed and why they have their Names changed. Here again we see Philo dealing with the Yahwah's revelation of his name to Moses:
It is a logical consequence that no personal name even can be properly assigned to the truly existent...Behold I shall go forth to the children of Israel , and shall say to them "The God of our Fathers has sent me to you, and they will ask me"What is his name? What shall I say to them? This you shall say to the children of Israel.'The Being [To On] has sent me to you. This you shall say to the sons of Israel....My nature is to be, not to be spoken". But so that " the human race should not totally lack a title to give the supreme goodness. He allows them to use by license of language, as though it were his proper name., the title Lord God of the three natural orders, teaching, perfection and practice...For this he says is my age long name...a memorial.
Philo's approach is very different to that of Josephus. For Josephus the name is given to Moses for sacrifices and to empower him to deliver the people from Egypt. For Philo it is given not because it is essentially connected to Yahwah’s holiness and his power but by “license of language” so that mankind will not lack title to call the existent (TO ON). For Philo the legal restrictions regarding writing about the name do not appear to be in force or at least he is either not bound by it or not aware of it. For he not only goes into an exposition of the name and it insignificance as a name but in his mind he goes above the name and explains that really the name is nothing to do with the true nature of the God of Israel but to do with the God of Plato who Philo's Moses informed. So what do we see here with Philo? If we ask ourselves what is Philo doing in these three passages or at least the two which deal directly with Exodus 3:15-20 we come to the conclusion that he is transforming the God of Israel into the image of the god of the Philosophers. And not only that but Moses himself, is transformed into a different Moses. It rather reminds us of the Apostles Paul’s understanding in 2 Corinthians that there were groups influencing that Church which were preaching another Jesus over against the one they had received. What then is the evidence that Philo is transforming the God of the physical men, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob into the God of philosophical concepts eclectically drawn together by Philo from the educational context in which he grew up and was educated? We will look at these presently but we should just observe that it is held by some scholars that The Life of Moses was written for educated Gentiles who were clearly philosophically inclined and perhaps interested in Philo's Alexandrian Judaism. Secondly the treatise on name changes was for a more advanced group and probably for a group of philosophically inclined Jews.
In The Life of Moses Philo first lays down the basis for his transformation of the God of the Bible into the image of the god of the Philosophers. He picks up on the LXX statement "Ego eimi ho on", "I am He who is" which translated "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" "I will be what I will be or I am that I am", he was working from a translation and it is held by many scholars that his knowledge of Hebrew was scant[18]. So this emphasis on eternal existence which the LXX lay down for Philo helped his work very much. His next stage is to place Philonic philosphical words into the mouth of God. So Moses is to tell Israel that "I am He who is" sent him to them so "that they may learn the difference between what is and what is not". That is as opposed to the goal which Yahwah has set for the operation, vis a vis, to set his people free from the burden of the Egyptian house of bondage. So Philo would have Yahwah give a lesson in philosophy not so much be the God who says to Moses "Ki Ehyeh Imaq", "Certainly I will be with you " (Ex 3:12). Philo’s dependence on the LXX text perhaps can be partially blamed for his seeing that the first thing Yahwah wanted Moses to do was to give the people a lesson in philosophy. Josephus as we noticed saw that the name was linked with the empowering of Moses to do his job.
The second lesson Philo's transformed God gives to the people was that his name was in reality not connected to him at all. Why? Because existence belongs to him, Philo is supported by some scholars who see in “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh” a hesitation in assigning a proper name to God. However the evidence of the rest of the Pentateuch and the Prophets and Psalms would seem to militate against this interpretation. From the text it is clear Moses was not sent to give a philosophy lesson in existence to Israel. He was sent in the authority of the name Yahwah to deliver that people of Israel from their suffering. Philo gives a more detailed argument against a name being assigned to his transformed deity in his treatise on changed names. In this case he perceives the difficulty he is going to have in turning what the Scripture clearly reveals as a proper name of God into a “pretend proper” name which Moses uses as though it were his proper name. We may well wonder what exactly is Philo's objection to the very clear teaching of scripture regarding the name Yahwah? And clearly it is tied to his education in Greek and Hellenistic culture and the fact that to his mind To On and Name do not go together. And Philo appears to define his God as one who can never be seen by his very nature. And the example he creates is Moses seeking to see the glory of Yahwah in Ex 34 and the fact that he was only permitted to see God back parts or what is “below the Existent” , not the Existent itself. And so because man does not have in mind or sense the organ needs to see the Existent no name can be properly assigned. In fact the text of Exodus 34 does not say no man can see Yahwah. It says no man can see Yahwah’s face and live. Philo prepared this argument before he got to the revelation of the name to Moses to explain away the fact that Yahwah himself gave himself a personal name. For Philo the God of the Bible did not properly assign this name for this is a logically impossibility according to his assumptions and deductions. So the God of Philo gives a name which is really not his name but just so that mankind not just Israel, may not lack a title to call him by. Even in giving this name that he may be called by he is said to give a lesson in the inappropriateness of applying a name to him. For along with the name God is made to give the lesson "My nature is to be, not to be spoken of". But we may ask Philo why did Yahwah raise up Pharoah? And the Scriptural answer is that his (God’s) name would be discussed all over the earth. And why did Solomon pray that strangers would come to Israel for the sake of the name Yahwah and on having their prayer answered return to there nations and tell people about the great God Yahwah. For Philo these plans of the God and the people of the Bible are removed leaving a God whose nature is not to be spoken of.
It appears to me that Philo was flying in the face of the Scriptures he studied mainly because of the people he was seeking to teach and those who had taught him. But this doesn’t go half way in explaining his transformation of the God and the message of Scripture revealing God’s name. Whereas the Scripture teaches that Yahwah is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, people with physical descendants, for Philo these three become symbols of three philosophical concepts, teaching, perfection and practice[19] used in Greek education to discuss virtue. Whereas most commentators understand that the name Yahwah is given forever[20], Philo reads that it meant only the age of human existence, as though that made the name less useful or less valuable. Whereas Yahwah gives the name as a memorial which the Psalmists sing about, the prophets prophesy by authority of, and which was a means to bring the God of Israel remembrance from generation to generation or even to all generations, indeed the name of Yahwah is a strong tower which the righteous can run into for salvation; Philo re reads it as being limited to mortal humans with memories and apprehension not as a blessing for the nation. So what is Philo doing in the examples in this passage? I believe here he is reading the scripture with the eyes and mindset only of a speculative moral philosopher who is pondering the universe and it beginnings and its eternity. This is as opposed to for example one who reads it as a recipient of the blessing of receiving God’s name to help him remember him and call upon him and praise him. Philo is doing eisegesis with the text. He did not focus on the Psalms and the prophets, and it is they where the name Yahwah is continually hymned, praised and lifted up. Philo does not lift up the name of Yahwah in anyway shape or form. For to him we should "Think it not a hard saying that the Highest of all things should be unnameable". We can see Philo is coming up against opposition either among his students or in his own mind. If his own mind it is perhaps as one scholar has said, that he could not harmonise his thinking on this issue and could not get his mind around the fact that in the Scripture God clearly assigns a proper name to himself, with more importance than merely “license of language”. Ultimately Philo’s transformation of the God of the Bible to a God of his philosophy is complete when he re ranks Yahwah from highest personal name to perhaps at least third down the line. At the same time there is an implication that he is thinking of the name Adonai or Kurious not Yahwah. For he states "The Lord was seen of Abraham...we must think of it as the manifestation of one of the Potencies which attend him, the Potency of Kingship, for the title Lord betokens sovereignty and kingship...And therefore the words are "The Lord (not "the Existent [To On]...But the Sovereignty when manifested confers on him a still higher gift on him who see's and hears him. He says to him, "I am thy God". So perhaps we see that the name Yahwah is an attendant of "To On" and an inferior revelation to "thy God". How does this complete Philo's transformation of God. We see To On is according to one source not used of God in the whole LXX. It is Plato's title of his God. So Philo places Yahwah as inferior to another which, doesn't not fit with the scripture which teaches in Psalm 96 that he is above all Elohim. And perhaps in Isaiah 42 which states "I am Yahwah that is my name I will not give my glory to another nor my praise to graven images". It would truly appear that Yahwah and Philo disagree as to his nature and his name. We are not sure if Philo read Yahwah as opposed to Kurios in his texts, Dahl and Segal argue he read Kurios from his etymological meanderings. Royse 1991 argues he read the Tetragrammaton but commented on the spoken Kurios from his reader. I can but agree with the Jewish Encyclopedia article “Philo”, that although Philo was brilliant and well read in scripture and Philosophy and a Jew considered orthodox in his community
“ Philo formed his language by extensive reading of the classics, He had resemblances to Plato, phrases from Aristotle, from Attic orators and historians…”
And I also agree with The Cambridge History of Judaism in describing his eclectic thought
“Platonism and Aristotlelianism were combined with Stoicism, numerical symbolism, amongst other ideas”(p880)
And it was the influence of all this Greek Philosophy which lead him to transform the nature of the God of the Bible from a God with many attributes to one with no attributes. So that the Jewish Encyclopedia could conclude “It is evident that this [God] is not the God of the Old testament, but the idea of Plato designated as Theos…In the Bible God is incessantly active in the world, is filled with Zeal, is moved by repentance, and comes to aid his people; He is therefore entirely different from the God described by Philo”.
But did Philo slavishly take his ideas from the Greek philosophies which preceded him? Or did he make his own contribution? From the study of Wolfson[21] it would appear he also had his own concepts, neither from the Greek culture nor from the Tradition of the Jewish Elders of Alexandria.
For says Wolfson “In none of the extent Greek philosophic literature prior to Philo are the terms ‘unnameable’, ‘ineffable’, and ‘incomprehensible’ in terms of incomprehensibility by the mind, occur as predication of God” (p 66). By making his name known to Moses, Yahwah was bring Moses into a very special privilege. In the Psalms there are blessing to the one who knows Yahwah’s name as we can see from the end of Psalm 91. But as Wolfson states further Philo’s God “Cannot be defined and cannot be known” (p66). We see then that although Yahwah sets it out as a desiratum that his people would know his name, Philo because of his background and desire to spread his Judaism to the Gentile world around him and his love for Greek philosophy conclude that God’s plan for then to “all know me from the least of them to the greatest” it logically impossible and his terminology needs to be explained away.
CONCLUSION
Why then would Philo feel compelled to wrestle so much to reinterpret the plan meaning of scripture? And the answer has to be away from the temple away from the land and in a philosophical culture and considering himself a spokesman he tried to bridge two world views. Unfortunately it would appear that the Hellenistic not the Biblical thought pattern overruled and so foundational teaching of scripture are undermined and an imaginary God of the Philosophers perhaps the ideal of Plato the To On even perhaps the supreme Good replaces Yahwah the living God of Israel. And compared to his contemporary Josephus, Philo is far more original as a Jew, only Aristobulos really preceded him, and perhaps far more daring but perhaps much further away from the Biblical God of the prophets even Yahwah. It would appear then that Josephus’s traditions and Philo’s philosophy lead them both away from the Biblical or Mosaic, Davidic and Prophetic attitude to the name Yahwah. Philo took his path as an individual and Josephus from his enigmatic position as a Priest and a Pharisee. In their writings they had to the evidence of an attitude to the name of God which though designed to show respect and honor to God’s name actually dishonored it by disobeying the clear injunction of the scriptures and ignoring the clear examples of the Biblical Israel and the prophets. Philo has wandered further from the path of the Scripture mainly due to his desire to make the God of the Bible palatable to the philosophers of his period.
Notes
[1] See Bruce FF, Israel and the Nations
[2] See Esther 1
[3] Because of the Tradition in the Letter of Aristeas, Philo and even Josephus and Rabbinic literature that it was translated by 70 or 72 Rabbis or in 70 days.
[4] See Jewish Encyclopedia “Philo”
[5] Grabbe. L., Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (Atlanta:Brown Judaic Studies 115 Scholar Press) p 78
[6] See Jacob Neusner : Judaism as Philosophy and Dillon The Middle Platonists from 80 BC to 220 AD
[7] According to the Mishnah the Pharisee is one who was particularly strict in applying the rules of Tithing and Cleannesses. The New Testament refers to them a lot and Josephus mentions them in both his Antiquities and his Jewish War
[8] In Aramaic speaking synagogues Mar or Maran was substituted in Greek speaking synagogues Kurious was substituted and in Hebrew speaking communities Adonai or Hashem was substituted all to avoid using the proper name God had granted his people.
[9] Mihnah Yomah 3:8 p113 Lipman, E., The Mishnah, Oral Traditions of Judaism, New York, Schocken Books ,1970
[10] We can not point exactly to which Simeon is being referred to the one who officiated around 300BC or the or Simeon the Hasmonean.
[11] At least the Mishanh indicates that among the Jewish Rabbis of the second and early third century there were a number of traditions indicating that whilst the second temple stood the Tetragrammaton was in use in its precincts.
[12] Lipman ibid 183
[13] See Jews, God, and History, Max Dimont for more discussion of this situation.
[15] The Encyclopedia Talmudica has an interesting article on divine names and the rules regulating the writing the names. Especially those which were not allowed to be erased and so could not be written in letters etc.
[16] The Qumran covenants also had rules restricting the use of the name
[17] , Ed Glazer, The Essential Philo
[18] See Grabbe. L., Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation, The Hebrew Names in Philo, Brown Judaic Studies, Atlanta: Scholar Press.
[19] Plutarch who is compared to Philo by Grabbe, chose three other men to exemplify the three principles, Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato.
[20] N
[21] Wolfson. H.A., Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Cambridge Massachusets: Harvard 1947
[i] For a review of the evidence see The Jewish Encyclopedia, “Tetragrammaton” And see Gedalyahu Alon’s “The Expressed Name” in Jews, Judaism and the Classical World.
[ii] Grabbe L Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation, The Hebrew Names in Philo, Brown Judaic Studies, Atlanta: Scholar Press
[iii] This is related in the Mishnah and the evidence from Philo and Josephus we will look at in this paper has is a part of the evidence for this neglect of the name Yahwah.
[iv] In the 6th century BC Yahwah spoke to Jeremiah saying there was a group in Israel who were trying to make his people forget his name for their dreams as they had previously forgotten it for Baal,.Isaiah 64 also says that no one was stirring themselves to seek his name. Finally Malachi seems to show a great disrespect for the name Yahwah and their the prophet indicates the name will become great among the gentiles. There is also prophets who warns of a time when people would be afraid to speak the name Yahwah.
[v] A. H Sayce Religion of the Ancient Babylonians p 4.
[vi] See Exodus 6-9.
[vii] JE “Tetragrammaton” Indicates that the authorities were seeking to keep the usage of the name only to the temple. However the failure to succeed in this is shown by the fact that they were still making decrees about the ban on the name even up until the 10th century.
[viii] A discussion of these issues can be read in G Alon Jews, Judaism and the Classical World 1977, “The Expressed Name”
[ix] See Schonfield The Gospel of the Hebrews. And Smith note 10 below
[x] Morton Smiths Jesus the Magician, indicates that fact that many of the outside of the community of the Way or the Nazarenes accused Jesus of doing his miracles by the use of the name spoken according to its true pronunciation although this went against the ban on the name.
[xi] Exod 3:14-15
[xii] p59 Transl. Whiston, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications
[xiii] Who knows Yahwah had said that when he punished Israel it would not do his reputation any good in sight of the nations who would say that he could not keep them in the land. Perhaps by banning the name the Rabbi’s had felt they could avoid bring so much shame on their God.
[xiv] Here we can contrast Philo the philosopher who does not believe it logically possible for his God to have a proper name, for name are accidental not essential and God’s essence for Philo is unknowable. Not withstanding the fact that Yahwah prophesied through Jeremiah, they shall all know me from the least to the greatest”.Jer 31
[xv] Even the Qumran covenanters had a restriction on the usage of the name. Suggesting perhaps that the split was in effect before the middle of the second century BC when the group took to the wilderness as a voice in the wilderness. But how is it that we have no clear record as to when this ban or restriction first took effect?
[xvi] It is possible that talking was permitted where writing was not for the Oral law had not yet been written and one reason for this according to Dimont was to ensure it did not compete with the written Torah. It is also a way of protecting the religion by keeping it from taking a permanent form which could fall into the hands of any one. In this respect not being permitted to write anymore would not automatically mean he was not permitted to speak more, indeed it implies that in the right context he could say more. This whole practice smacks of the practice of the Mystery religions prevalent in the antiquity in the Roman empire. Here initiates were sworn to secrecy after initiation. They could not divulge the secrets of the cultus to outsiders on pain of great curses. The very terminology of Josephus smacks of this practice. See Kittel Theological Word Dictionary of the New Testament “Mysterion”
[xvii] Jer 23-24
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posted by Evangelist Edi Nachman Bsc. PGCE @ 9:30 PM
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