adultery

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

of course - try Chumash with Rashi - Yitro - Parshah - the ten commandments are in the 6th portion. rashi is an excellent place to start for how jews approach the text of the Torah.

b'shalom

bananabrain

Thank you!

[Muslimwoman]

Hi BB

Apologies, my life consists of working and sleeping these days and nothing in between so haven't been able to get back for a while.

I think I have asked all I need to on this but it has been a really interesting and enlightening discussion, thank you.

I was astonished by your link re Ashkenazi Jews (my blood ran rather cold when I saw the words German and AshkeNAZI on the same page and was very relieved to read that it is pronounced differently). However, ivery interesting read.

Of course we Muslims also have the 'treat others in a way that respects G-d's Name' rule - just a shame people do not stand in their pulpits on Friday and rant about that one.

It is most certainly a tangled and ugly web we humans weave.

Salaam

[bananabrain]

yes, it is a bit of an odd coincidence, but the word "ashkenazi" is from the character "ashkenaz" in the bible and there's no etymological connection. in any case the association of ashkenaz with germany is a relatively recent one, ie about 1000 years old and is merely a convention, like "sefarad" being associated with spain, or "edom" with rome.

but yes, exactly what you said.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[bob x]

"Ashkenaz" arose from a scribal error (nun for waw) for "Ashkuz", the form used in Assyrian/Babylonian records for the people who called themselves something like "Shkuz", Iranian-speakers who lorded it over the Slavic peasants on the western steppes (the name survives in Ukrainian as the insult "scuzz", which has made it into English slang); the Greek form was "Skuth", giving rise to the Latin name "Scythia" for Ukraine. "Ashkenaz" in Hebrew came to be broadened from Ukraine to Eastern Europe in general over time; in the medieval period it referred especially to Khazary, a Ukrainian kingdom whose ruling family converted to Judaism (most of the Khazar people themselves, now called "Chuvash", converted to Islam instead; but Khazary became a refuge for Jews fleeing Byzantine and Persian persecutions).

[bananabrain]

interesting, but why must it necessarily be a "scribal error" rather than an honest difference in pronunciation?

b'shalom

bananabrain

[bob x]

Because there is no dialect which pronounces the long-u vowel as an n-consonant. On the other hand, the written difference between waw and nun is a single, short stroke.

[bananabrain]

i still don't see why the word in TaNaKh couldn't have evolved in some other way, however. after all, consonants get added and dropped all the time when people render "foreign" words into a local language.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[bob x]

Internal insertion of a nun would be unprecedented; while single-stroke letter alteration is a commonplace ("Nebuchadnezzar"/"Nebuchadrezzar" and "Barduk-Baladan"/"Marduk-Baladan" are cases where both the erroneous form, listed first, and the correct form are both found in the Tanakh, and copyist error is the obvious explanation).

[bananabrain]

if it wasn't a foreign name, perhaps.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[bob x]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

if it wasn't a foreign name, perhaps.

b'shalom

bananabrain

It is because they are foreign names that they get miscopied.

[bananabrain]

that's what i'm saying.

b'shalom

bananabrain