Das Tetragramm als Sprachfigur

What is a name? What is a word? How are the names of persons different from the names of gods? What is special about the Hebrew name for God, the tetragrammaton? In a dialogue with Franz Rosenzweig's writings and against the backdrop of research in linguistics and the philosophy of language, Nadine Schmahl explores these questions and examines the function of the tetragrammaton in the system of language. Her reflections are based on Franz Rosenzweig's last essay »The Eternal. Mendelssohn and the Name of God,« of which the author does a thorough analysis, something which had not been done up to now, against the backdrop of Rosenzweig's complete works. The paradoxical tetragrammaton as a figure of language is proven to act as an interface between revelation and translation, Rosenzweig's two major subjects.