Aspects of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton in Greek

• Authors: Pavlos D. Vasileiadis
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article recounts the persistent use of the sacred Tetragrammaton through the centuries as an „effable,“ utterable name at least in some circles, despite the religious inhibitions against its pronunciation. A more systematic investigation of the various Greek renderings of the biblical name of God is provided. These renderings are found in amulets, inscriptions, literary works, etc., dating from the last few centuries B.C.E. until today. It will be illustrated that some forms of the Tetragrammaton were actually accepted and used more widely within the Greek religious and secular literature since the Renaissance and especially since the Modern Greek Enlightenment. Furthermore, it is asserted that for various reasons there is no unique or universally “correct” rendering of the Hebrew term in Greek. Of special note are two Greek transcriptions of the Tetragrammaton, one as it was audible and written down by a Greek-speaking author of a contra Judaeos work in the early 13th century in South Italy and another one written down at Constantinople in the early 17th century-both of them presented for the first time in the pertinent bibliography.

Keywords

EN

Tetragrammaton; Greek Bible; Divine names theology; Bible translations; Biblical God

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Open Theology
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1

Dates

received

2014-08-03

accepted

2014-10-08

online

2015-01-29

Contributors

author

Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/opth-2014-0006