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Just
one quick comment on this. In extra-biblical (unpointed) texts, there's really
no way to know whether YHW would be pronounced differently from YHWH. If the
final H is a mater, the word could be written just as easily without it and
sound exactly the same.
Trevor
Peterson
CUA/Semitics
Yikes, Liz.
You’re assuming I know enough to have an opinion on the Elephantine
Papyri – I don’t even know Aramaic. And I’m not really sure how to
explain the various differences in the divine name. But it does seem
likely that YHW would have been pronounced differently from YHWH, don’t you
think? Given that it can occur both as YH (usually in names, or in HLLW
YH); as YHW (in names, or in extra-Biblical texts); as YHWH (normally in the
Bible); and in Exodus 3:14 – probably as a word play -- as )HYH, it doesn’t
seem at all unreasonable to conclude that it may have been pronounced
different ways at different times. Why this is so, or what significance
this might have had, I’m not at all sure.
Ken
-----Original
Message-----
From: Lisbeth S.
Fried [mailto:lizfried AT umich.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 8:32
PM
To: Biblical
Hebrew
Subject: RE: God's
name: was Curious abut "G-d"
Interesting, Ken.
Do you think they pronounced the name differently at Elephantine, and if
so,
are these just
dialect differences?
Also, in your list of
examples, you left out my personal favorite: David's continually
swearing
"as YHWH lives," I'm
going to get that bastard, or some such.
-----Original
Message-----
From: Ken
Smith [mailto:kens AT 180solutions.com]
Sent: Wed, January 23, 2002 11:14
PM
To: Biblical
Hebrew
Subject: RE: God's
name: was Curious abut "G-d"
I'm hesitant to know how far to
carry this conversation, because it doesn't precisely seem apropos to
understanding Biblical Hebrew, and could very easily (if it hasn't already)
degenerate into inter-religious name calling. But I'll try to stay as
objective as I can on the matter.
I'm not sure which evidence
you're asking for, but I'll toss out evidence for various things I referred
to in my last post:
(1) That common, ordinary,
every-day people regularly spoke and pronounced YHWH seems clear just from
the Biblical writers’ recording of numerous conversations. Some very
random examples which could be multiplied repeatedly include Deut. 1:6,
which records Moses saying to the entire assembled nation of Israel, “YHWH
our God spoke to us at Horeb.” 1 Sam. 1:11 records Hannah’s vow, “YHWH
Sabaoth, if only you will look on the misery of your servant.” In 2
Kings 18:22, the Assyrian Rabshakeh says that YHWH sent him to destroy
Jerusalem. I’m not sure how else to understand these passages than to
believe that common Israelites – and non-Israelites – all knew how YHWH was
pronounced, and indeed pronounced it regularly and without a thought.
I certainly don’t intend to tread on Jewish sensibilities here; my
understanding was that even Jews agreed that the prohibitions against
speaking the Name were the result of later developments, of attempts to “put
a hedge around the law” to prevent the possibility of accidentally using the
Name L$W). If it’s normal to argue that even, say, Adonijah and Elijah
and Hezekiah never pronounced the Name, that’s news to me, and difficult if
not impossible to support historically.
(2) Given #1, there’s a variety
of evidence which might indicate how those same lay people might have
pronounced YHWH. Part of the problem in evaluating it is that some of
it points in different directions. Everyone seems agreed that the
Masoretic vowel points are a qere
perpetuum taken from )DWNY, so those are out as a pointer.
But there are a number of theophoric names which contain a shortened version
of YHWH, i.e., “Adoni-Yah”, and have the first vowel as a qamets. The same is true of
“Hallelu-Yah” in the Psalms. The sere for the second syllable is more
debatable, as it doesn’t seem to have been included in any names.
(It’s also possible that the Name was known in multiple forms: it certainly
seems to have been shortened in some instances, e.g., in the admittedly
syncretistic Kuntillet Ajrud fragments, where it is sometimes found as YHWH,
and sometimes as YHW.) There are some who put forth arguments that it
must be sere based on various
linguistic considerations, but I’m not really qualified to evaluate those,
and they strike me as hypothetical at best. More to the point are
various forms of YHWH found in Greek transliteration from before the fourth
century CE, where it occurs variously as IAO (perhaps equivalent to the
Kuntillet Ajrud YHW), IABE, IAOUE, IAOUAI, and IAE. These latter seem
to point fairly clearly towards an original pronunciation as YFH:W”H
(Yahweh).
Is there other evidence that
you’re looking for, Shoshanna?
Ken Smith
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