spin

:huh:

You complain about me mentioning the Massora and yet you seek recourse in the Samaritan literature or even kabbala. Irony. You offer no ancient indication of the pronunciation of שבעות and yet you are triumphal about your conclusion, rather than as indicated by our earliest indication (the Massora -- and yes, it's late, but doh!). You walk around flashing as you do here and complain about 'my penis is bigger than yours' arguments. I'll leave you to sort out your ironies.

Pissing about with single etymologies is insulting to your own intelligence, as you have no way of ever supporting your conjecture. Linguistics doesn't work like this.

And I don't really understand the necessity for the stuff about δεσποτης: epithets function like names, as can be seen by modern HaShem or "the lord" or "your highness". For all intents HaShem acts like a name, just as one could say about δεσποτης. It's not a name though. The same is the case for Υψιστος, Αδωναιος, Ουρανιος or Σαβαωθ. You know how each is derived: the highest god, the lord god, the god of heaven, YHWH of hosts, though this last is probably simply YHWH sabaoth (as the users probably weren't too interested in the origins).

Ans what am I supposed to do with the following?

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT THE REAL ISSUE NOW IS HOW YOU CAN IGNORE BOTH CELSUS AND ORIGEN. I want to hear an explanation of how Tsabaoth developed into a title for the god above all gods, above the hypostases of κύριος and θεός in Alexandrian Judaism. It is impossible. Your citation of the LXX will not help you here.

You seem to want to get all cartesian with stuff that sounds like this:

The feminine name of Yaldabaoth is forethought Sambathas, which is the week. His son is called Yao, and his feminine name is lordship. Sabaoth's feminine name is divinity. Adonaios's feminine name is kingship. Etc. (N.H. Codex II, "On the Origin of the World" cited in the Gnostic Bible, Barnstone, Meyer, eds., p.419)

It's not going to fit nice logic. How the terms were chosen is out of (y)our reach. Enjoy your conjecture.

:wave:


spin

stephan huller

"Seek recourse"? Have you read Charlesworth's latest piece about the Samaritan's having the original Torah? The Hebrew letters on the page - שבעות - made it obvious that Sabaoth was possible. I never understood why that was in doubt. But I presume that your challenge was intended to make it impossible to argue that שבעות was pronounced any other way than after the manner of the Massora. The Samaritans are a legitimate tradition. No less 'authentic' than the rabbinic tradition. It is a legitimate possibility and the kabbalistic explanation at least ATTEMPTS to deal with the arguments of Origen. No one should dismiss evidence merely because it is inconvenient.

I am not dismissing the idea that Adonai Tsabaoth was incorporated into the original formula (which is plain from the Nag Hammadi material). But the idea of Sabaoth being the name of the most high DID NOT BEGIN with Tsabaoth. It doesn't make sense to me at least and I welcome any further attempts from readers to put forward any possibilities that will help my understand that possibility.

Your evidence regarding the examples of LXX transliteration was very important. Thanks again for that.

spin

Uh-huh.

Don't talk to me about Charlesworth. There are proto-Samaritan textual elements at Qumran, so the basic issue is nothing new. However, you have missed the point through this claim. Our information about the Samaritans is culturally rather recent. I have no doubt that its origins are ancient, but its ancient nature has been transmuted through the centuries. You cannot use it as some sort of trump card regarding the phonology. It's about as dependable as the modern Jewish transcriptions I seem to have noticed you using.

When you are oblivious to the evidence we have, you give the impression of not really wanting a response. The Massoretic text clearly reflects the Hebrew transliterated into LXX for צבאות. This is plain. Yet when pointed out that that same Massoretic text indicates a different realization for שבעות, you decide to let your predisposed conclusion dictate.

Do I need to? We already have a good candidate. I would think you need to eradicate the obvious connection with צבאות first before trying to insinuate another.

Once you get there you might consider why, if Sabaoth is related to the Hebrew for seven and weeks, the Apocryphon of John (Wisse's translation) has the following:

"And the archons created seven powers for themselves, and the powers created for themselves six angels for each one until they became 365 angels. And these are the bodies belonging with the names: the first is Athoth, a he has a sheep's face; the second is Eloaiou, he has a donkey's face; the third is Astaphaios, he has a hyena's face; the fourth is Yao, he has a serpent's face with seven heads; the fifth is Sabaoth, he has a dragon's face; the sixth is Adonin, he had a monkey's face; the seventh is Sabbede, he has a shining fire-face. This is the sevenness of the week. (Nag Hammadi Library, Robinson ed, p.67.)

This writer has missed out on what you know.

And I haven't argued to the contrary. I have argued that you turn your back on evidence and prefer less well associated phonological indications.

This again does seem a little ironic.

Try a bit more.

Good luck.


spin

stephan huller

Wow! You'd think we were fighting over the honor of our mother. Just a recap. I asked originally 'is it possible that שבעות might be the source of the gnostic figure Σαβαωθ. In the course of introducing the thread I used terms like 'lazy' to describe the alternative proposition which was unfair. I was also wrong for saying that שבעות more closely represents the Greek Σαβαωθ than צבאות does. So I tended to overstate the case FOR שבעות initially.

You came along and then pointed to something I had overlooked - the evidence of the LXX in favor of צבאות being the source of Σαβαωθ. But then you overstated that argument saying:

As the LXX features Σαβαωθ for צבאות it should close the issue.

You also claimed that "shabu'ot, which should finish in Greek something like σαβουοθ" which is based it seems on the Jewish Aramaic inversion of the vav and ayin from the original Hebrew. You also dismissed the evidence of Celsus and Origen as completely uninformed and challenged me to find proof that anyone ever pronounced שבעות as Sabaoth.

When I found proof in English (no small feat given the lack of scholarly interest in the Samaritans) and offered an explanation for Origen's references to a 'mysterious' explanation for the origin of the name, this conversation became acrimonious with utterances like "you walk around flashing as you do here."

I think you are probably a real scholar in the world beyond this post. Your methodology seems sound and you seem quite intelligent. But whoever you are, I think this debate is quite instructive in the sense that you were quite happy to just leave this at the LXX identification. You seemed to rest your case like a lawyer and I admit that for most 'juries' of peers or anyone else that what bothered to read this discussion it seems like a 'smoking gun.'

But the reality is that there is no slam dunk here. It is just a case of familiarity trumping the actual historical situation that there really are two viable possibilities for the origins of Sabaoth as THE NAME of the Most High god.

I did not understand your dismissing of the Samaritans then. I don't understand it now especially when we see repeated evidence that the earliest heretics (Simon Magus, Menander, Dositheus, Cerinthus, Marcion have some attachment to the Samaritan tradition). If the title was established at an early date and we had to determine which of the two Hebrew culture milieus Sabaoth came from, Samaritanism has a lot going for it merely by the number of 'heresies' that it influenced).

Your argument seems pathological in this regard. It is as if you don't want to consider the origins of the heresies and their doctrines. That's fair enough. There are things I don't want to consider in this world. But why would I go on to someone's thread if I wasn't interest in the subject. Oh, wait a minute - it's about me and the way that I am 'carrying on' here.

Well, I apologize if I have upset the usual 'atheist vs. Christian' or 'mythicist Jesus vs. historical Jesus' debates that have went on here since Barney Miller went off the air. I was asked to come to this site. I found the opportunity to engage people useful and even enjoyable.

The bottom line is that this isn't an argument where there is 'right' and 'wrong.' Both etymologies have things going for them. I happen to think that שבעות has more going for it than צבאות does. But any meaningful continuation of this discussion will require you to actually attempt to make an argument on behalf of the other side beyond 'the LXX has צבאות.' The Greeks it can be said chose to emphasize שבעות as a numerical value. We do the same thing in English when we say the Festival of Weeks. Is that an argument AGAINST שבעות being the source of Sabaoth?

I guess it is if you have it in for the guy that established the thread that discussed the possibility ...

spin

No, actually. It's based directly from the pointing of the Massoretic Hebrew and the available evidence for Greek transliteration of Hebrew names.

You overstate what was said. I noted that they were providing some useful information from the period -- evidence for Jewish avoidance of the use of the name of their god.

Obviously we want early indications. The Samaritan material certainly is not.

At least be reasonable and read in context: "I hate having these 'my penis is bigger than yours' arguments". Where's the acrimony?

(How much of this attachment is actually a reflection of ancient polemic?)

When you transliterate שבעות as shavu'ot, you use the modern Jewish "v" for the written bet. We cannot meaningfully make that substitution as there is no way that I've seen to validate it for antiquity. It is safest to leave it as a bet instead of a "v" because it hides the underlying linguistic evidence for the mores of modern transcription.

When you present information from Samaritan literature you don't know how it relates to ancient times... or do you? Do you have some way of showing that the phonological indications from that literature reflect well early pronunciation? We know that the pointing of the Massoretic text seems to hold up with early Hebrew both from Greek transliteration indications and DSS attempts to render words more correctly. It is many hundreds of years earlier than the surviving Samaritan written traditions.

I don't think you have a reasonable sample of my views.

There is no point in apologizing (at least to me) for any upset from the above.

At least half right. The other half, as I have said, is based on conjecture that you have no way of ever validating.

And some think that Kevin Costner can act.

I guess you aren't interested in the fact that the gnostic literature that I have cited doesn't support your conjecture, apparently unaware of the connection between sabaoth and seven, placing it as a number five in order, when a connection with seven should stimulate a formulation that reflects it.

Let's look at something you said in the OP:

There was a Samaritan sect identified as 'the Sebuaeans' which is ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY connected with the no. seven.

Let's assume the connection is as you say certain. We come to the word "Sebuaeans" which appears to be a Latinized Greek Σεβουαιοι (I haven't seen the source, but maybe you have). Remove the plural (-oi) and the gentilic (-ai) and we have a root vowel ending -ou which reflects shabu'ot. Assuming "Sebuaeans" come from the same root as שבעות, it is another indication that your hope for sabaoth from שבעות doesn't seem likely.


spin

stephan huller

Back to the Monty Python argument clinic. I will do my best to keep this discussion constructive. The description of the Sebuaeans comes from Epiphanius:

http://books.google.com/books?id=IKy...hanius&f=false

As Pummer notes the only thing we know about the sect is what Epiphanius tells us about the sect and his details are confused:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dhD...J&sa=X&oi=book

Of course you ignore the hard bet. No surprise there. But that is the only thing that matters here. Whatever source gave Epiphanius the information about this community whose name is related to the number seven the bet is hard.

It would indicate to me that Samaritan bet was always hard. The Jewish pronunciation was always sheva.

The Samaritans now pronounce all bets with a hard pronunciation. There is some indication that the soft bet existed in the early period but Epiphanius's source makes clear that it was hard.

Now I don't know what to make of the rest of your argument. My argument is that the name Sabaoth might have something to do with שבעות. The Samaritans couldn't have changed the name which comes from Deut 16:10:

ועשית חג שבעות ליהוה אלהיך מסת נדבת ידך אשר תתן כאשר יברכך יהוה אלהיך׃

Given that Epiphanius demonstrates that the Samaritan bet was hard in the period what possible objection can you have שבעות as a source for Sabaoth?

I don't understand why this bickering keeps going on between us

spin

From this I was able to find the original, which is, as I'd suspected, Σεβουαιοι, so we can now forget about its mention in the OP as it is irrelevant to your conjectured etymology. I only dealt with it as you'd brought it up: "There was a Samaritan sect identified as 'the Sebuaeans' which is ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY connected with the no. seven."

As I said, support for the u as in shabu'ot. Funny that a Samaritan sect used a Hebrew name... or maybe there was no difference in pronunciation of the word yet.

(Epiphanius can be be confused, but Origen or Celsus can't.)

You are making very hard for me not to ridicule you. I explained clearly earlier that there is no justification for contemplating any other sort of bet than a hard one. Modern Jewish developments need to be related to the past and not assumed, as you do.

Please demonstrate this claim from ancient evidence or forget it. Ancient Greek seems simply to use a beta for the bet in Hebrew names. Unless Greek also maintained the same ambivalence of phonological weight, one should think that the Hebrew was more likely to have been all hard bet. I haven't yet seen anyone make such an argument.

OK, how does he make it clear as compared to the Hebrew evidence in his work?



I would remark on the safe change to "may", but that would only embolden you again.

It seems you are once again assuming what you need to show.

How could he demonstrate that it wasn't hard? What was available in Greek to make any distinction?

I started out with a gentle pointer that you were barking up the wrong tree, which only seemed to egg you on. You knew what your conclusion was.


spin

stephan huller

The post began as a question:

I said the etymology didn't make sense to me and that שבעות made more sense. You demonstrated that the LXX rendered צבאות as Σαβαωθ. I acknowledged that is important and you made it seem that settled the issue. I strongly disagree. שבעות fits Celsus's and Origen's explanation of the title as 'name.' I can't make any sense of the path that would lead צבאות to be understood to be the NAME of the Most High God and neither can you.

Your comment that:

is silly because Epiphanius is universally regarded to be an unreliable witness. There are a number of scholarly opinions about Epiphanius's unreliability but my favorite is Plooij's statement which follows:

When he wrote this, Plooij had what Epiphanius said about the Diatessaron in mind, but he intended it as a general assessment as well. After trying to disentangle what Epiphanius has on the Samaritan sects, I have to agree. Note that “uncontrolled” is used here in its technical meaning, “without any way of testing from other evidence or another witness”.

Origen and Celsus are certainly better witnesses (although a time machine would be the most desirable historical apparatus).

A hard bet is the 'b' sound. If you agree with this why are you making run around in circles? The only way שבעות in Deuteronomy 16:10 could be pronounced would be Sabaoth. There is no evidence that the Samaritan pronunciation would have changed from the current pronunciation. I was offering up the soft b as a possibility to show I am fair.

And I have just had a personal correspondence with Ruairidh Boid (Principles of Samaritan Halachah Leiden: 1980 - a personal friend - that he thinks there is no reason to doubt that the Samaritan pronunciation would be any different from with it is today. That settles the issue once and for (unless you can pull a Samaritan expert out of your hat).

There are two possibilities - שבעות and צבאות. צבאות has the LXX but has a lot of problems associated with it. it doesn't make intuitive sense to assume that a Hebrew plural noun meaning 'armies' or 'forces' could have developed into or become mistaken as a name for the single Most High God. שבעות is pronounced 'Sabaoth' by Samaritans today and there is no reason to doubt that Deut 16:10 would always have been pronounced this way by Samaritan groups. Its association with the number eight make it a more likely candidate for the god who sat in the eighth heaven.

spin

With "names" like υψιστος, αδωναι and ουρανιος.

This is getting pretty dull. The epithet connection is banally obvious. )L (LYWN, removing god and we get Elyon, ie hypsistos. Wow. YHWH CB)T, removing YHWH and we get Sabaoth. And you still can't fathom this?

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Yes, Epiphanius ain't too reliable, but you still want to believe our polytheist and our christian are reliable witnesses for your purposes. Gosh, I've got a rare three dollar bill you might like to buy at a very reasonable price.

It's when his rendering of Sebouaioi made good sense that his unreliability came into sight. So let's forget about Epiphanius now, right?

Uh-huh.

Gosh you do surprise me.

Umm... diachronic linguistics.

Languages do tend to change over time, you know, like Hebrew and Phoenician as exemplars of the Canaanite language family. Some are more conservative than others, but assumptions that they don't change seem not to be tenable. There were at least three dialects of Hebrew in the era of the DSS, showing that tendency to change. You'd like to believe that Samaritan stopped changing.

I asked regarding Epiphanius's orthographic ability to show your claim that he demonstrates that the Samaritan bet was hard:

How could he demonstrate that it wasn't hard? What was available in Greek to make any distinction?

Can you answer my question now? I am trying to get you to make sense of your claim that "Epiphanius demonstrates that the Samaritan bet was hard" as compared with the way the Hebrew was.

I also made this request: "Please demonstrate this claim (ie "The Jewish pronunciation was always sheva.") from ancient evidence or forget it." What about this?

Not according to the pointing in the JPS Tanakh (2000) I use... oh, I see, from later, you mean the Samaritans pronounced it, but why are you making this source Deut 16:10?

Can I cite that?

Well, you want to make two. We have a clear connection between צבאות and Sabaoth and basically zippo for שבעות. We know that צבאות is used frequently in the Hebrew bible as an epithet for god, as is Shaddai and Elyon. Somehow they can become substitutes for the name, but Sabaoth can't.

It makes no sense to you? Does it make sense to you that "da Vinci" gets treated as a surname? Doh! What an argument: it doesn't make sense to you.

If sabaoth can be a transliteration of צבאות, then it can be conceived of as a name. We know at least the first part is certain.

"[I]t doesn't make intuitive sense". :constern02:


spin

stephan huller

This is becoming my daily catechism. You began by degrading the Samaritans and now when I demonstrate that their pronunciation supports the association with Sabaoth you SPECULATE that it might have changed or - even worse - make the argument that the Tiberian pronunciation has some bearing on the language of the Samaritans.

Grow up. This is childish. You can't possibly be so dense as to be arguing that the Samaritan origin for the title of Sabaoth can be disproved based on a Jewish pronunciation of שבעות from the ninth century.

You challenge me to avoid speculation but if the Tiberian pronunciation is projected into the distant past by you what's the issue about making the same assumptions with regards to the Samaritan pronunciation of the same term?

It's a reasonable possibility and it can be argued to be most likely possibility if we assume the traditional understanding of an origin for the Christian heresies out of a Samaritan source whether 'Simon Magus' (Justin), 'Dositheus' or other early sources.