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techne -> RE: G-d or God? (1/17/2007 3:37:08 PM)
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well, just so's ya know, the thread in question was prompted by this:
If you are a Christian, don't write "G-d." Just don't. I know why you're doing it, you know why you're doing it, but seriously: just don't. Stop, and don't. You're just confusing the people who don't get it and irritating everyone else. Writing "G-d" instead of "God" when you're not Jewish [is stupid - my paraphrase. the language here is a bit...kvetchy]...
His name isn't God. His name never was God. I know you think you're continuing the Jewish practice of not uttering or even writing the vowels of the Divine Name, but what you're doing is the rough equivalent of a Jewish person never writing the vowels to Adonai, Elohim, or any of the other names that are spoken and are uttered every day in Jewish life. Heck, "Adonai" is even used, spoken, and written as a substitute for the unspeakable, unwritable Divine Name. If you can say and write the vowels in Adonai, you can probably say and write the vowel in "God," which is nothing more than a Germanic word for a pagan god that was appropriated into Germanic languages for the Christian deity. So please, please please please: stop writing "G-d."
and this:
...[T]he difference between the Jewish tradition and [this] Christian fad is that the Jewish tradition developed over centuries and was incorporated into the actual faith. If every Judaic custom, tradition, and practice that was adopted or appropriated from another culture was abandoned, you'd have almost nothing left in Judaism. (In fact, most recognizably Christian traditions would be abandoned as well.) There's an enormous difference between the Judaic practice and tradition of not uttering the Divine Name and the Christian fad of writing "G-d." While tradition itself may be nothing more than "fad + time" (or "superstition + time"), my real irritation with Christians writing "G-d" is the fetishization of Judaism within many segments of American Protestantism.
The bottom line for me is that the Jewish faith has always held a special reverence for the Divine Name of God. You might argue, "So does the Christian faith!," but there's nothing in the Christian tradition that resembles the Jewish reverence/cautiousness/anxiety toward the Hebrew word "YHWH," if only because the Hebrew language is not a central component of the Christian tradition and its connection to God. The Christian relationship to language itself is unique and complicated, and very different than the Hebrew; we receive the words of Jesus second hand and through translation (Aramaic/Hebrew/Greek to Greek), and most of us receive the words of Jesus through a translation of a translation (A/H/G to Greek to Latin, and via Latin or Greek to all our common languages). There is a detachment from language and a distancing from language within Christianity even as metaphors of language (e.g., "the Word") are used to described Christ himself. Language operates as a powerful, spiritual metaphor in Christianity; but in Judaism (as in the Hebrew Bible), the Name is often the Thing itself, with the gap between signifier and signified totally collapsed. While this may also occur within Christianity to some extent, it is hardly comparable to the extent it occurs within Judaism. This was true prior to the Babylonian exile, and the adoption of Assyrian "superstitions" can be viewed as the logical extension of Hebraic attitudes toward language and words that were already evident and developed in the Hebrew Bible itself.
As for Jewish people in the Anglophone world who write "G-d": while it may seem equally silly for English-speaking Jewish people to write "G-d" as for Christians (because, as I said, it's not like "God" is the even close to the Divine Name), I think the practice was picked up by many English-speaking Jewish people not because they confused the English word "God" with "YHWH," but because they wanted to extend the tradition of honoring the Divine Name by not enunciating its vowels into their everyday life and everyday faith. It was a legitimate Jewish tradition of which they wanted to partake, and this gave them a means to do it. Christianity really has no such tradition, and it was only adopted by Christians who were appropriating Jewish practices into their faith. In short, you have Christians who view Judaism as a metaphor of a more "authentic" relationship to God and the Bible, and who then fetishize and adopt Jewish practices. Thus, when a Jewish person does it, it's understandable; when a Christian does it, it's irritating.
to which i replied:
anyway. why i decided to use G-d, eh? well, it's really as much as literary device as anything - but it's not an unthinking or insignificant one. when i was working as a finishing carpenter about 10/12 years ago, i did a number of bookcase installations/ basement refurbishments in some homes of the orthodox jewish community. despite being goyim. in several homes, i noticed newsletters riddled with "G-d". intrigued, i did some research on the use of the literary device and it really resonated with me. so i began to use it, recognizing it as a literary device, but one with intention and meaning. something small (the simple omission of a letter) yet significant (referencing the holiness of G-d) was something i wanted to acknowledge.
i understand the conflation of sign and signifier in this instance - it's an interesting aspect of hebrew thought and language (the name is the person is their character; it's almost magickal) - and that idea serves as well for this usage as the tetragrammaton or whatever. if the point is to acknowledge what the word references. so it may not be THE NAME, but it is a name that has some measure of currency. it may be true that the word "God" is derived from a pagan deity but we understand in this case what it is used to refer to. context is everything, isn't it?
further, what appealed to me was the acknowledgement that the name/person is holy and that there should be some care taken in the use of his name. not to make a law out of it. it is a choice. fetishization? bah! christian fad? in what century? i certainly haven't noticed it in numbers resembling faddishness. authenticity? hmm (though in this day and age, with appropriation and colonization and various other -tions, be careful little academics what you do...). i never thought of this little literary subversion as being a way of legitimizing the jewishness (i.e. roots) of my christian faith - it simply made sense to me from a conceptual standpoint, especially as i think we do not respect the power of words sufficiently, whether spoken or written. somehow, physically "lessen-ing" the written name added importance, which would in turn increase reverance for his name and, natch, THE LORD himself.
just so you understand the context that generated this question. i guess i'm hoping for something more in-depth and considered.
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