[Avodah] hayom yom rishon....

[Lisa Liel]

On 8/14/2011 10:53 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 14/08/2011 11:44 PM, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> On 8/14/2011 1:07 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> On 14/08/2011 3:10 AM, Harvey Benton wrote:

>>>> i was told that the reason we are allowed to use the babylonian
>>>> names of
>>>> our months (although) they (10 of 12) were names of babylonian gods

>>> AFAIK only one is the name of a god, and it's one that's named in Tanach
>>> so it's OK. In any case, I suspect that the god was named after the
>>> month (or both after the same other thing) rather than the other way
>>> around.

>> Definitely not. The name actually means son of the sun in Sumerian.

> Which part means what?

DUMU is Sumerian for son.  ZI or ZI(D) (there's some different of 
opinion as to whether the D sometimes found at the end of the word is 
part of it, or just a grammatical thing) means true.  I confused Dumuzi 
with the Sumerian for Marduk (AMAR.UTU).  So it isn't actually son of 
the sun, but rather "the true son".


On 8/15/2011 8:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 11:53:01PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>>> Definitely not. The name actually means son of the sun in Sumerian.

>> Which part means what?

> I thought it was from the Sumerian Dumu+zid = faithful (dumu) son (zid),
> which got shortened by the time we got to Bavel to "Dumuzi", the month
> being "Dumuzu" = Dumuzi's month. Both became "Tammuz" in Aramaic,
> kayadua'.

You're right about the meaning, but you have the translations reversed. 

DUMU in Sumerian is rendered as banu in Akkadian, which is cognate to 
our ben.  Dumuzi is an Akkadian (Assyrian/Babylonian) transliteration of 
DUMU.ZI(D), while Dumuzu is the same name in nominative case.  To the 
Akkadian ear, Dumuzi sounds like it's the object of a preposition 
(genitive), even though the final vowel is part of the name.

>> We don't need to know the heter in order to do the same as they did.

> But we don't know the parameters of what they did. Which gods' names
> are okay, and which not? And we do know that most usages are assur.

> Mordechai went around being called by a tribute to Marduk, Hadasah went
> by a name taken after Ishar (Mrs Tammuz, paralleling Isis, Asheirah,
> and Aphrodite). Would you deduce from this that it's appropriate to
> have little boys running around named Christopher Weiss?

Why not?  We have children named Dennis or Denise, both of which come 
from Dionysus.  The Yiddish name Feivush/Feivel (and the English name 
Phoebe) both come from Phoebus Apollo.  We don't use names like Chris 
because we have a particular aversion to Christianity.  Not because it's 
a name sourced in Avodah Zara.

Lisa