Biblical Hebrew Forum

[furuli AT online.no]

Dear Liz,

A couple of years ago E. Tov visited Oslo and gave a series of 
lectures. A principal theme in these was that many, or even most of 
the Qumran manuscripts were made by different people in different 
places outside Qumran, and then they were imported to Qumran.

"The Rule of the Community"  VI,27-VII,2 seems to indicate that a 
substitute was used for the name by the Qumran community.  Evidence 
for this is seen in non-biblical manuscripts which use )L where we 
expect the tetragrammaton. There are, however, many non-biblical 
manuscripts that use YHWH, which may suggest that they were written 
by people in other localities who used the name. The witness of the 
biblical manuscripts you mention, is harder to interpret. One could 
argue that because these manuscripts were copies and the 
tetragrammaton was in their Vorlage, it was copied. Even if it 
occurred in the manuscript they could use a substitute when they read 
the text. Or, if biblical manuscripts were copied outside Qumran, the 
tetragrammaton may have been pronounced by the people in these 
localities.

The occurrence of the tetragrammaton in a manuscript, therefore, 
cannot settle the question whether it was pronounced or not. However, 
the occurrence of IAW in 4QLXXLevb suggests pronunciation because it 
is a phonetic transcription.

One important fact regarding the DSS is for the most part neglected 
in discussions about the name, namely, that the substitute used in 
Qumran manuscripts is *not* )DNWNY but )L. Thus the KURIOS of NT and 
LXX manuscripts of the 2nd century C.E. have no antecedent!  The 
argument is that at the beginning of C.E. the name was no longer 
pronounced, but was substituted by )DNWNY. Because of this the LXX 
translators and the NT writers translated  )DNWNY with KURIOS. And 
that is the reason why KURIOS with reference to God is found both 
places. But the problem is the the most important link, the first one 
is lacking. There is no indication that )DNWNY  (or Aramaic MR)/MRY) 
was used as a substitute for YHWH in B.C.E.!  And there is no 
evidence that i generally was substituted in the days of Jesus. Thus 
the pointing of YHWH by the Masoretes cannot be traced back longer 
than to the days of Jehuda hannasi and Mishnaic times.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



> Dear Rolf,
> What troubles me about your excellent discussion
> is that YHWH is used in the DSS copies
> of the biblical texts.
> Liz
>
>
>  >
> >  Dear Bill,
> >
> >  If we look at the question from a historical point of view, it was
> >  not a particular interpretation of Scripture that caused people to
> >  stop pronouncing YHWH, but rather foreign influence. In the centuries
> >  after Alexander the Great, the Jews were in many ways influenced by
> >  Greek thoughts, including Plato's view that God is nameless. "A
> >  bitter struggle between Hellenists and Hasidim centered around the
> >  pronunciation of the Divine Name." according to rabbi A. Marmorstein
>  > (1927) "The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God", p 13. The people at Qumran
>  > ceased pronouncing the name while the Pharisees, Haemerobaptistae and
>  > others continued to pronounce the name.
> >  There are three passages in the Tanach that has something to do with
> >  the use of the name, namely,  Lev 24.16, Ex 3.15 and 20:7.
> >  Manuscripts of the LXX from the second century C.E. translate Lev
> >  24:16 in a way suggesting that the name should not be used (we do not
> >  know the original wording); Targum Onkelos does about the same.
> >  However, the rabbis of old did *not* use Lev 24:16 or Ex 20:7 as
> >  reason for not pronouncing the name, according to G. F. Moore (1955)
> >  "Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era. the Age of the
> >  Tannaim Judaism", vol I, p. 428.
> >
> >  It is quite strange that the very passage that definitely says that
> >  the name should always be used, is the passage that was used to show
> >  that the name should not be pronounced, namely, Ex 3:15. For those
> >  interested in the four fanciful ways the words of this verse were
> >  explained to say the opposite of what they do say, please look at the
>  > Jewish lexicon M. M. Kasher (1967) "The Encyclopedia of Biblical
>  > Interpretation", vol II, p. 109.
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > Best regards
>  >
>  > Rolf Furuli
>  > University of Oslo
>  >