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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] END OF THREAD: Variants of YHWH in the BHS Text
  • Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 12:28:27 +0200


Dear Liz,

The things that bother you are real, because Yahweh is an artificial construction which has absolutely no basis in old Hebrew sources. It is reported by some Church fathers that the Samaritans used a pronunciation close to Yahweh, but there are no Hebrew sources pointing in this direction.

An important argument against Yahweh is that it has just two syllables, whereas the evidence from theophoric Hebrew names in the Tanakh points in the direction of three syllables. There are so many names beginning with YEHU (YAHU?) suggesting that this was the pronunciation of the first two syllables. The forms YHW (YAHU or YAHO ) from Elephantine may very well represent the first two syllables of an apocopated form.

We realize that the Masoretic pointing (E-A, E-O-A, E-I) do not tell us anything about the original pronunciation of YHWH. However, few realize that the opposite is true as well. There is no reason to believe that the Masoretes knew how YHWH originally was pronounced, so their borrowing the vowels of )LHYM and )DNY in no way rules out that these vowels were used in the original pronunciation.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli



B-Haveray,

We will allow an answer to Liz recent points about the pronunciation of the
tetragrammaton, shown here. Keep it on track, folks!

Bryan

Dear Dave et.al.,
I pronounce the name Yahweh when I teach
largely because scholars have for the most
part decided that this is how it was pronounced.
As Peter says, it's based on the Greek where it was
written IAOUE. However, several things have always
bothered me about this. 1) it doesn't conform to any of
the theophoric names that we have, 2) it doesn't conform
to what we know from Elephantine, and 3) the Greeks, to
my knowledge, do not have an aspirated H in the middle of
their words, so that sound if there could not have been expressed.
herefore, it doesn't make sense to me that Yah-weh is correct.
Liz







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