Why is Yoseif obviously « Yehoseif, and not the other way around?
Yoseif could just be a verb with the theophoric element missing, like Yitzhhaq and Ya‘aqov.
Yehoseif could be a later "frummed up" version of the name, as we might say today ;-) .
Maybe it is because as chazal point out ... Hashem says to Moshe לא נודעתי and not לא הודעתי
The Ptolemaic Egyptian historian Manetho may have thought that Yoseif was a theophoric name, too, since he may have replaced Yhvh with Osiris in Osarseph.
chardal-HaZaL point it out? I am only aware of Rashi pointing it out to reject the midrash as peshat (Haval al de'avdin v'lo mishtakkehin.)
Anyway-My original thought was how ironic it is that Yosef is shortened.
>I am only aware of Rashi pointing it out to
How often does rashi say something that Chazal did not?
chardal-HaZaL point it out? I am only aware of Rashi pointing it out
You are correct. Apparently this is Rashi's insight. But it seems to me that Rashi is giving the pshat. The pasuk uses the Nifal form "I became known" rather than the Hifil "I caused them to know".
"It cannot be said that the patriarchs did not know the name YHVH, since we find, 'Abraham called that place YHVH Yir'eh' (Gen. 22:14], and similarly, 'And He said, I am YHVH, Who brought you out of Ur-Casdim' (Gen. 15:7)" (Shadal on Ex. 6:3). He translates this verse, "I showed Myself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Omnipotent, but as that which My name 'the Lord' signifies, I did not make Myself known to them."
a later example is from European Jewish culture, in which J+H+W+D+H+ (Yehuda) became J+W+D+H+ (Yuda) or even J+H+W+D+#?
Also from Talmud Yerushalmi culture!
Good point! :)
What about Genesis 4:26? "then began men to call upon the name of the LORD."
In theory that is a separate matter, since the verse claims that the yhvh name was unknown to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (or rather, was not made known to them). Other, certainly earlier figures, could have known that name.
Unless we're taking a source critical approach, the most likely explanation is something along the lines of what Dan 8:38 am posted, that the actual name was known to them but not something which the name signified which was now to be revealed to Moses.
I was going to ask "what about other י-names" but Steg beat me to it. Like יצחק -- I'm not sure that's a theophoric name you'd want to have.
>The Ptolemaic Egyptian historian Manetho may have thought that Yoseif was a theophoric name, too, since he may have replaced Yhvh with Osiris in Osarseph.
Interesting.
Jordan:
I'd love to have the name *Yitzhhaqeil or *Yehotzahhaq or *Tzehhaqyahu or *Elitzahhaq...
Steg, that's what children are for. :D
S:
kein yehi ratzon!
Amen!
Remember though we shouldn't give our children extra reasons to hate us! ;)
Daganev-A significant portion of Rashi is not from HaZaL; generally, his peshat is not, and that of course includes grammatical insights and discussions. Also some of his midrashim he heard/read from others such as R Moshe Haddarshan. I have heard the estimate that 80% of Rashi on Humash is derash, 20% peshat. Probably of the 80%, I would guess 75% at least is from HaZaL. The truth is even ones he heard from his teachers may have originally been from HaZaL.
>Daganev-A significant portion of Rashi is not from HaZaL; generally, his peshat is not, and that of course includes grammatical insights and discussions. Also some of his midrashim he heard/read from others such as R Moshe Haddarshan. I have heard the estimate that 80% of Rashi on Humash is derash, 20% peshat. Probably of the 80%, I would guess 75% at least is from HaZaL. The truth is even ones he heard from his teachers may have originally been from HaZaL.
Umm, did you missay something, because the numbers here don't match up.
80% is drash 20% pshat, which means chazal there said 20%
80% of the drash, 75% is chazal.. so 60% total + 20% = 80% chazla.
Then some unkown amount of Rashi's teachers also being said by chazal means that we have 80+% Chazal.
I don't think 19-% is considered significant.
>80% is drash 20% pshat, which means chazal there said 20%
No, it means that most of the 80% is Chazal (MR's guess is 75%) and presumably a smaller percentage of the peshat, since Chazal's interpretations are mostly derash.
If 60% of the total is derash from Chazal and, say, 10% of the peshat (therefore 2% of the whole) then we are left with fully 38% of Rashi's pirush which is not from Chazal.
I don't know if this is the correct breakdown, but it would certainly be correct to say that a lot of Rashi isn't from Chazal if this were the proper breakdown.
I'm a secular Jew and am just beginning the study of Biblical Hebrew, solely as a hobby. Anyway, I guess I figured Joseph was a verb-name as steg says, it just seemed right - Joseph is he-profits and he certainly does corner the market and make a killing.
If Joseph was Jehoseph, what would that mean? "The verge of YHVH" or "The end of YHVH", assuming that his name would end with "sof", would that be right? How does this really relate to the narrative?
I guess that I don't take the Torah as "min hashemayim" as said in previous post, I have no problem believing that the characters were primarily named in order to further the narrative. Or that Joseph might not have been BORN Joseph, but that it might have been a name granted to him AFTER his successful career as minister of the Two Lands. On the other hand, I suppose that one could have the naming of Joseph be a "prophetic" act, allowing a literally-true interpretation of the narrative.
Still, how does this get to be "fairly certain"? It seems to me, as a beginning amateur reader of Biblical Hebrew, that Joseph as a verb-name is quite apt whereas the theophoric alternative substituted just doesn't come as clear to me.
What would "Jehoseph" really mean?
According to HALOT "yehosef" derives from "yosef". Parenthetically TDOT writes that most modern scholars do not believe "yehuda" to be a theophoric name.
"Unless we're taking a source critical approach, the most likely explanation is something along the lines of what Dan 8:38 am posted, that the actual name was known to them but not something which the name signified which was now to be revealed to Moses."
Isn't that like saying "unless we want the answer we can make tortured excuses?"
I've been wasting my night away deleting old emails. Here is one from B-Hebrew mailing list that I thought was somewhat relevant:
The usual form in prefixes is Yo or Yeho, of which there are many examples:
Yehoshua (Joshua), Yehonatan (Jonathan), Yehoram/Yoram (Joram) and so on.
Yigal Levin
END QUOTE
I think the schewa in Yeho prefixes can only best be
attributed to vowel reduction when the syllable is far
removed from the stressed syllable. This combined with
the standalone Yah and the suffixed Yahu seems to
conclusively prove and original 'a' in the first
syllable. However, in a trisyllabic version of the name the first syllable would
have been two syllables back
from the stressed syllable and therefore a vowel
reduced first syllable would be phonetically plausible.
In this case the mono-, bi- and tri-syllabic forms
would be:
Yah
Yahuw
Yehow?h (most probably Yehowah or possibly Yehoweh)
James C. Read
UK
Considering the first half of the verse implies that the Avot "knew" Hashem as "Kei Shaqi", it's fairly clear that the passuk is not taking about names per se but attributes/perspectives.
I discussed this a while back.
(http://parsha.blogspot.com/2006/07/parshat-
shelach-earlier-theophoric.html)
I would add that even with a source-critical approach, you have a problem, because there are two etymologies for Yosef - Asaf Elokim et Cherpati, and Yosef (spelled chaser) YKVK Li Ben Acher.
So the standard source-critical approach that "Shemi Hashem" is E, will have a problem with the name Yosef anyway -- unless we say that it is not theophoric for Asaf Elokim.... Of course, the Yosef YKVK can (but need not) lead to a theophoric interpretation.
I also would not discount the possibility of back-formations. That is, by the time this perek in Tehillim came about, people *interpreted* the name as theophoric based on its "Yo" beginning, and so used the expanded for Yehosef. Similar to how "Shabba" became an absolute form of Shabbat because people interpreted Shabbat as the construct form.
josh waxman:
where is "shabba" used as an absolute form of "shabbat"? that sounds really cool.
I think S explained my comment accurately. I also do not know exactly if this is right-but it seems to be true regarding Rashi on Humash. Clearly though most of his perush is from HaZaL but that is not the only thing he is interested in exploring and eluciating(-not-translating.)
To be fair though, my joke is not true since he translates often.
I heard this from Dr. Steiner, and don't remember specifically which case he was referring to, but an example (grabbed from Jastrow) would seem to be Tg Onkelos to Vayikra 23:32, in which Shabbat Shabbaton is translated שבא שבתא, Shabba Shevata, or in Tg Pseudo-Yonatan on the same verse, שבא ונחיא, Shabba veNachya.
Taking Exodus 6:3 literally is not necessarily a "source critical" approach. The first to suggest that reading was the Karaite Yeshua ben Yehuda, quoted by Ibn Ezra there, who attributes the earlier references to YKVK to the Mosaic retelling, i.e. Moshe replaced the actual name that had been used with YKVK. (Ibn Ezra strongly disagrees.) It certainly doesn't require subscribing to the DH.
And what about God changing Hoshea to Yehoshua.
It was Moshe (see Bemidbar 13:8), and as I noted in the post that sparked that the one I linked to above, this might be the first example of a theophoric name based on YKVK rather than Kel Shakkai, which would indeed promote the most literal reading of "Lo Nodaati" (though we would have to discount Yocheved and Yosef...)
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