Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

I sometimes wonder, but maybe I am just paranoid, if 
there are modern day Hebrews in high standing who keep 
the real pronunciation and meaning of yhwh as a closely 
guarded secret and pass them down from generation to 
generation to keep them alive.
I noticed before that someone mentiones that Josephus 
commented that 'it was no longer lawful' for him to 
pronounce the name, implying that it happened in his 
lifetime and that the current pronunciation was known to 
him. Does anyone know where exactly he says that? I 
should be very interested in reading the account.
It was also questioned before why ehyeh (hyh) is related 
to yhwh (hwh). I have reason to believe that as the name 
had already been widely accepted as being pronounced in 
certain way at the time of the penning of the Torah that 
this is why yhwh remained as it was even though the common 
usage in the Hebrew of that time was to use the hyh form. 
The reason I have come to this conclusion is the patterns we 
see in scripture before the widespread of the superstition 
which banned its usage.
1) Early MSS of the LXX show a hebrew tetragrammaton amongst 
Greek writing
2) DSS, in places, show archaic lettering of yhwh amidst the 
by now widely accepted aramaic lettering of the rest of the 
manuscripts
These factors led me to believe that the behaviour was to preserve 
its ancient pronunciation against the flow of evolution of the 
rest of the language. Thus Moshe wrote ehyeh as the normal way 
of saying the verb form in his day while he wrote yhwh which had 
already by now been written in stone (so to speak).

Does anyone know of extrabiblical semitic texts which attest to 
the divine name as a foreign god? 

This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email
Security System.
>From Praexus AT aol.com  Wed Jul 20 11:26:51 2005
Return-Path: <Praexus AT aol.com>
X-Original-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from imo-m25.mx.aol.com (imo-m25.mx.aol.com [64.12.137.6])
        by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 902D64C00B
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:26:51 -0400 
(EDT)
Received: from Praexus AT aol.com
        by imo-m25.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v38_r1.7.) id 3.55.778db765 (14374)
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:26:48 -0400 
(EDT)
From: Praexus AT aol.com
Message-ID: <55.778db765.300fc733 AT aol.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:26:43 EDT
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: 9.0 for Windows sub 5040
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.6
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] high priest on Yom Kippur -- no strings attached?
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.6
Precedence: list
List-Id: Hebrew Bible List <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:26:51 -0000

Hi b-hebrew,

Soren

>> a tradition that the high priest on Yom Kippur was to wear a rope around
his ankle, so he could >> be hauled out if he was to die in the Holy of 
Holies.
> .. I seem to have contributed to keeping a baseless tall story alive: ...
Some pretty
> knowledgeable people.... go out of their way to debunk it.  apologies for
my gullibility

Schmuel
No apology necessary :-)
Who are some of these knowledgeable folks ?
Anybody from Aish or Orthodox circles ?

Liz Fried

I thought it was in Tractate Yoma but I can't seem to find it.


Rolf Furuli
The place is Yoma 6,2.

Schmuel

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/t03/yom11.htm
I don't see it, although I could check Soncino . or maybe I'm missing it.

A friend Craig posted on my email forum, saying it was otherwise an oral
tradition

The Zohar says:
"a cord was tied to feet of high priest before he entered the Holy of Holies"
   (Zohar V (on Vayikra), 102a)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/