Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Jim West wrote:


>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.
>
>>
Dear Jim,

I think you confuse Origen and  Clement of Alexandria from whom Origen got
some knowledge (or Theodoret). As Peter has pointed out, Clement used the
form  IAOUE, but Origen used PI IOTA PI IOTA in all columns of the Hexapla.
But back to Clement, what does IAOUE  represent? Peter even expressed the
possibility that the pronunciation may be something like YAHUWE, and this
may very well be the case. I will not argue about syllables and what is the
correct pronunciation, but the following data from my study of Origen's use
of vowels suggest that we cannot be sure which Hebrew letter/sound a Greek
"a" or "e" represented:

Looking at the table we see a picture which corresponds very well with the
Tiberian vowel system as regards the Hebrew vowels representing i, o, u,
long a and  long e:
95% of the occurrences of hiriq are transcribed by an i-sound.
94% of the occurrences of holem are transcribed by an o-sound.
91% of the occurences of qibbus/shureq are transcribed by an u-sound.
90% of the occurrences of sere are transcribed by an e-sound.

The æ, short a, and shewa deviates much more from the Tiberian vowel system:
52% of the occurrences of seghol are transcribed by an a-sound, 21% by an
e-sound and 20% by zero.
57% of the occurrences of pathah are transcribed by an a-sound, 23% by an
e-sound and 8% by zero.
88% of the occurrences of shewa quiescens are transcribed by zero.
12% of the occurrences of shewa mobile are transcribed by an e-sound, 16%
by an a-sound and 68% by zero.

A study shewa as first vowel in names in  the LXX, Josephus, and Hieronymus
gave the following data (I compare with Origen):
shewa > e, Origen-12%,  Hieronymus 24%, Josephus 20%, LXX 26%
shewa > a, Origen-16%,  Hieronymus 65%, Josephus 58%, LXX 54%
shewa > ø,  Origen-68%,  Hieronymus 9%, Josephus 0%, LXX 0%
shewa > other,  Origen-4%,  Hieronymus 3%, Josephus 18%, LXX 20%
pathah > e, Origen-23%,  Hieronymus 16%, Josephus 21%, LXX 18%
pathah > a, Origen-57%,  Hieronymus 84%, Josephus 66%, LXX 68%
pathah > other,  Origen-19%,  Hieronymus 0%, Josephus 13%, LXX 14%

I do not suggest a particular Hebrew pronunciation behind IAOUE, but in the
light of the different ways patah and shewa were rendered in Greek, the
antecedent of IAOUE could even be YEHOWA. I mention this, not to argue for
a particular pronunciation, but to show the great difficulties for a
reconstruction of the pronunciation of the divine name also in Greek.

Your argument that the Masoretes who did not pronounce the divine name,
would hardly have used the vowels of )ADONAY if these vowels represented
the correct pronunciation, is only valid if they knew the original
pronunciation, and this is unlikely, given the information above.


Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of oslo