The Selectivity Is the Evidence

The standard explanation for the Memra is that Jewish translators were being careful with the divine name, so they used a respectful substitute. It sounds reasonable until you check where the substitution actually falls.
If it were mere reverence, Memra would appear every time the Name appears. It does not. It clusters in a specific kind of passage - theophanies. Where Yahweh is visible, audible, physically present, walking, going before, appearing.
That selectivity is the argument. The Targumim are not avoiding a word. They are distinguishing a visible acting Yahweh from a transcendent unseen God, and they have a term for the first one.
Which is the two-powers framework, sitting in the Aramaic Scriptures that ordinary Jews heard read aloud.
Scripture links:
- Genesis 3:8 - "walking in the garden in the cool of the day."
- Exodus 13:21-22 - "the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud."
- Genesis 18:1 - "the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre."
- John 1:14 - "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
They were not dodging the Name. They were naming the one you could see.