Biblical Hebrew Forum

[GregStffrd AT aol.com]

Dear Peter:

You wrote:

<>


Yes, I agree. That is why I gave (y) as the equivalent to I in my previous 
post.


<<And then Greek did not have an h sound and so Hebrew H was 
always omitted. >>


On this, we do not agree. As I stated in my previous post, the use of A 
contains an inherent final aspirant, so that by means of A the Greeks 
achieved the phonetic equivalent of the Hebrew H. 


<<Anyway, the final H in YHWH is probably silent (a 
mater) in Hebrew. >>


Perhaps, but how does that affect the issue here, in relation to a middle 
vowel for the divine name? 


<< Similarly, Greek did not have a letter with the w 
sound and so, as in the evidence I quoted before, the syllable initial 
w sound was represented by OU. This is the regular transliteration 
rule, as I proved. >>


Well, no. I believe you proved, as you earlier wrote, that there are "many 
cases where in Hebrew the waw is syllable-initial 
it is transliterated in LXX with OU, occasionally with O, U or W  (omega), 
and sometimes there is no letter reflecting the waw. anything in relation to 
the Greek transliteration of W." Thus, it is even possible that the OU in 
Greek transliteration is intended to capture a shureq sound, not a consonant. 
Compare YE- HU- DAH with I- OU- DAS. If we take "Judah" as a point of 
comparison, then we might also note that in Greek transliteration the Sheva 
and the He drop out. So it is possible that IAOUE (but see below on this form 
of the divine name in Clement) represents the Hebrew Ye- Ha- ueH.


<<So we apparently have a Greek pronunciation YA-WE 
which was written, according to Greek rules, IA-OUE. >>


Again, there is no rule that proves the Hebrew, syllabe-initial W was always 
transliterated OU; in fact, you have shown that this cannot be accepted as a 
rule. We must also consider the shureq sound, which was at times 
transliterated by OU, as in the phrase Hallelujah, where the Hebrew shureq is 
again (as with Judah) transliterated by OU.


<<Now I accept that a Hebrew YAHOWE might have become IA-O-UE, though I 
suspect IA-W-UE (W 
for omega) would be more likely as in the LXX fragments Greg quotes. I am not 
sure what a Hebrew YAHUWE would have become in Greek, possibly  IAOUE or else 
IAUE. >>


Yes, as I stated previously, IAOUE could indeed represent a trisyllable form, 
so that it cannot be used as proof for a bisyllable form. 


<<Thus the most we can say is that Clement's Greek version leaves the 
question open, with YAHWE 
still the most likely. >>


Actually, I checked Migne's copy of Clement's work, and IAOUE does not even 
appear there. It is actually the Greek form IAOU, which, similar to IAW, may 
well represent an abbreviated form of the divine name, which AGAIN maintains 
the middle vowel: IAOU = Yahu- ; IAW = Yaho-.

When seen in the light of the evidence from Hebrew compounds, there really is 
no convincing evidence for a bisyllable form of the divine name. The most 
that can effectively be used to support such a pronunciation is a fourth 
century CE reference to the Samaritan pronunciation. This is, as Buchanan 
put, "hardly enough to overpower all the evidence" to the contrary. 

Greg Stafford