Biblical Hebrew Forum

["yahua'sef" <gs02wmr AT panther.Gsu.EDU>]

Shalom Alaikhem,

I have been having a conversation with a brother named Moshe on this list,
and I'd like to get everyone else's opinions on this subject(I am pasting 
some of my comments here from our private emails). Could anyone share
their views on how right/wrong off I am in my assertions?

I was always taught that there existed no such name as "Yahweh" since that
is obviously an anglicized version of the ancient Hebrew
Tetragrammaton(YHWH) and an incorrect transliteration. 

There is no "W" sound in archaic hebrew (which the scriptures were written
in)  like we have in english.  The "W" is just what you say it is a
"double U"  So the original pronunciation of the letter is "OOH or UU" not
"WAH" as we say in english.  So it is not YAHWEH, but YAHU/YAHOO/YAHUUE or
YAOHU/YAHUWA, at least as I have been taught. 

And that no matter which way you spell it the pronunciation is still the
same "YAHU"  not "YAHWEH pronounced "YAH-WAY". Even if someone did not
want to go into the phonetics of it all, YAHWEH literally does not make
sense. "YAH" in hebrew means "be, exist, is" "WEH" in modern hebrew means
"AND". So if you read YAHWEH (hebrew like arabic and aramaic is read from
right to left) it would give you the meaning "AND IS, AND EXIST, or AND
BE." To break down YAHU you would have "YAH" which means "be, is, and
exist" and "HU" which in archaic hebrew is a derivative of "HUD" which
means "ONE"  So a literal translation would be " The ONE IS, THE ONE
EXIST, THE ONE BE" 

PSALMS 68:4, EX 6:3, and EX 3:15 all use the name "YAOHU" or "YAHU" and it
would not make any sense to insert "YAHWEH" into those passages. Many of
the prophets(Nevi'um) had the name of YAHU in their title also, which
would make their names(archaic Hebrew names):

ISIAH - YASHAYAHU          JOEL - YAHUUL          NEHEMIAH - NACHUNYAHU
 JEREMIAH - YIRMEYAHU       NAHUM - NAHUMYAHU      HEZIKIAH - HEZEKAYAHU
 MICIAH - MIKAYAHU          ELIJAH - ULIYAHU       JEHOSHAPHAT-
YAHUSHAPHAT
 ZEPHANIAH - TSEPHANYAHU    SOLOMON - YADIDYAHU    
 MATTHEW - MATTANYAHU       HOSHEA - HOSHEAYAHU
 OBADIAH - OBADYAHU         JUDAH  -  YAHUDAH
 JOSHUA - YAHUSHUA          JOSEPH - YAHUSEPH
 ZECHARIAH - ZAKARYAHU      JOHN   -  YAHUKANANV
 JOSHUA - YAHUSHUA          JOSEPH - YAHUSEPH
 ZECHARIAH - ZAKARYAHU      JOHN   -  YAHUKANAN


What does the list think?

Regards,

yahua'sef