Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Philip" <phil-eng AT ighmail.com>]

I think it good to attempt to discover the 'correct' pronounciation of the
tetragrammaton, whatever the 'correct' pronounciation is;

I however think that God would not be too offended if we got is
less-than-correct.

There has been a whole lot of literature, study, debates etc. over the
years, decades, centuries about the correct pronounciation of the
tetragrammaton:

IN simple terms, if the tetragrammaton is supposed to be the third person
singular of the Hebrew verb 'to be' i.e. HWH, then the pointing of YHWH
should be fairly obvious and hence the pronounciation.

Philip Engmann.

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of David P Donnelly
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 6:37 PM
To: markeddy AT adams.net
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Variants of YHWH in the BHS Text


Mark Eddy says:

>>>
So the "it is written" form of God's Hebrew name has no  vowels.
>>>

Dave says:

Concerning this "it is written" form of God's name that has no vowels,
God says in the last sentence of Exodus 3:15:

>>>
: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
>>>

It would seem that you possibly  believe that this 4-letter Hebrew name
without vowels
is God's name forever.

Do you believe that a time will come,
when men and women will once again know how
to pronounce this 4-letter Hebrew name without vowels,
and men and women will pray to God using this name?
[and pronouncing this name as God pronounced it to Moses]

Dave Donnelly

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:18:01 -0500 "Pastor Mark Eddy"
<markeddy AT adams.net> writes:
> One more answer to your post, from a slightly different perspective:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David P Donnelly" <davedonnelly1 AT juno.com>
> >
> > Yehovah
> > [yod-shewa-he-holem-vav-qamets-he]
> > is a Hebrew form of God's name
> > that is preserved in both the Ben Chayyim Hebrew text,
> > and in the Leningrad Codex..
> >
> > It appears to be a Hebrew form,
> > that is pronounceable.
> >
> Just because can be pronounced does not mean that it was ever
> intended to be pronounced. So you ought not
> to make the following statement:
> > It is pronounced "Yehovah" in Hebrew.
>
> It "could be" pronounced this way. And it "is" pronounced this way
> by some people who don't understand the
> Massoretic substitution of the word Adonai for YHWH as they read the
> biblical text.
>
> > Thus to be redundant,
> > I am trying to understand the "it is written" form of God's Hebrew
> name,
> > [e.g. Yehovah]
> > as it is preserved in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew text over 6000
> times,
> > and as it is preserved in the Leningrad Codex 44 times.
>
> I think the question is, what do you mean by "the 'it is written'
> form of God's Hebrew name"? When the
> divine name was first written, it had no vowels. The Dead Sea
> scrolls have no vowels points. Some of the
> scrolls even write the name YHWH in ancient Hebrew script while the
> rest of the text is written in what we
> now call Hebrew script. The copyists were preserving the divine name
> just as they saw it in the old
> script, while they were converting the rest of the text to "modern"
> script. Some later pointed Hebrew
> manuscripts refrain from adding vowel points to YHWH, even though
> the vowels had been added to every other
> word. So the "it is written" form of God's Hebrew name has no
> vowels. The vowels were added later, by
> people who did not pronounce the divine name. You can see pictures
> of these older manuscripts in Ernst
> Wuerthwein's book _The Text of the Old Testament_, a standard
> textbook for textual criticism of the Hebrew
> Bible. It is clearly documented that the original Hebrew text was
> written without vowels. So we cannot
> refer to an original pronunciation of YHWH. We can only refer to the
> Massoretic pointing of the NAME, and
> we know that they pronounced it "Adonai."
>
> > I am aware that many sources do not believe that
> > this  "it is written" form of God's Hebrew name,
> > [e.g. Yehovah]
> > was meant to be pronounced.
>
> This is not just a belief but an historically accurate description.
>
> If you wish to discuss the pronunciation of the divine name based on
> the names of biblical people which
> incorporated that name, you may find some support for the
> pronunciation Yehovah. See names such as
> Jeho-shua, Jeho-nathan, Jeho-iada, etc. Someone else has already
> suggested a different possibliity,
> people's names that end in "jahu" or just "yah." These would suggest
> a different pronunciation for the
> divine name.
>
> Mark Eddy
>
>
>
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