Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

At 08:21 PM 5/3/99 +0200, you wrote:

>It is correct that the pronunciation "Jehovah" builds on the vowels of
>)A:DONAY; thus it is a misunderstanding that the vowel points given by the
>Masoretes represent the original pronunciation of the divine name. But we
>should not stop with this, because that has lead some to another
>misunderstanding, namely, that something close to "Jehovah" could not be
>the original pronunciation, but rather Yahweh, and that this pronunciation
>is backed by strong evidence.

Thanks for your very cogent remarks Rolf.  But I would differ with you on
this one small point: I don't believe that the pronunciation of the name as
offered in the Hexapla was "mistaken"- as Origen went to great pains to
offer Greek transcriptions of Hebrew words that were heard by him.  It is
then much more likely that Yahweh was the pronunciation utilized by Jews of
Origen's day (at least).  And to continue- we know that the vowels of Adonai
were placed with the divine name to purposely "mislead" pronunciation.
Therefore it seems very unlikely that the inventors of this fabrication
would offer something similar to the very word they were attempting to avoid!

>
>Neither of these two misunderstandings has any bearing on the question of
>the pronunciation in ancient Israel. I think we can use our time better
>than to try to find the "original" pronunciation of the divine name, but
>those wanting to review the evidence should be influenced by neither of the
>two misunderstandings. To use your imagery: The horse died in the year 1000
>CE, but could have been alive and well in 600 BCE.
>

You are of course right.  How folk pronounced words in ancient Israel is
completely beyond the pale of historical research.

>
>Regards
>Rolf

Best to you,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Petros Baptist Church- Pastor
Quartz Hill School of Theology- Adjunct Prof. of Bible

fax- 978-231-5986
email- jwest AT highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest