"Blessings"

[A. Maberry]

The OED has under bless, "OE bloedsian, bledsian, bletsian not found
elsewhere in Teutonic, but formed on the Old Teut. type *blodisojan f.
*blodo-m OE blod (An equally satisfactory derivation of bletsian, if it
were the original form, would be from blot sacrifice, on O Teut type
*blotisojan; but besides that bloedsian actually occurs earlier, the
change from ds to ts is phonetically natural, while the reverse is not.
The etymological meaning was thus 'to mark (or affect in some way with
blood (or sacrifice); to consecrate. *But the sense development of the
word was greatly influenced by its having been chosen at the Eng.
conversion to render L. benedicere and G. eulogein, which started from a
primitive sense of 'to speak well of or to, eulogize, praise' but were
themselves influenced by being chosen to translate Heb. BRKh primarily 'to
bend,' hence 'to bend the knee, worship, praise, bless God, invoke
blessings on, bless as a deity.' Hence, a long and varied series of
associations, heathen, Jewish, and Christian blend in the Eng. uses of
bless and blessing.*  [emphasis, such as it is, mine]

This, of course, is no proof of "Blessings" being necessarily Christian or
pagan, and I personally have never received a letter from anyone which
closed with "Blessings, [signature] John Doe." But I think the history of
the word, at least as represented by the editors of the 1970s ed of the
OED (only one I have at home) doesn't preclude use by pagans--if there is
definitive proof of its use by pagans, I'll leave that to more competent
authorities. The KJV is surely too recent. The OED has citations from
Gospel translations more than 600 years earlier. There are no cites from
pagan literature, and how much of such literature exists, I do not know.
Used by pagans? Well, maybe ... but I'd need a piece of evidence.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu

On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Mark Odegard wrote:

> 1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
> communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the
> communion of the body of Christ?
>
> Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
> hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
>
> 'Blessings' particularly pagan, particularly non-Christian? Nah.
>
> There are a number of sites online with the KJV along with super-duper
> search engines.
>
> The given name 'Benedict' is the Latin nominalization of the Greek word for
> 'blessed', 'blessing'.
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>