Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 20/07/2005 14:47, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ...
>
> > Or indeed this form could have been pronounced YAHWE, as these letters
> > predated the wide use of matres lectionis, and most interpreters
> > understand the final he of YHWH (however it is pronounced) as a mater
> > lectionis.
> >    
>
> I cannot imagine that any Hebrew linguist would suggest that the YHW in the
> Elephantine papyri was pronounced YAHWE.  In that case we would expect a
> final H. ...

Rolf, can I ask you a simple question. Is word final he used regularly 
as a mater lectionis in the Elephantine papyri? Was it always written 
for a word final E vowel? I don't know the answer to this question. But 
if a final he was generally omitted for a final E vowel, the normal way 
of writing Yahwe would have been YHW, exactly as found. Of course this 
form would be ambiguous between an ending in -we, -o and -u, at least if 
waw was at least sometimes used as a mater lectionis by that time.

...

> > Not at all. There is a general phonological rule by which an original
> > qamats in this position is reduced to sheva, and a patah is impossible in
> > this position.
> >    
>
> Your words are both right and wrong. The Masoretes used the rule you 
> mention, and it
> may have been very old, because the Masoretic vowel tradition seems to go
> back to the B.C.E. ...

And our evidence for the pronunciation of names starting Yeho- is 
largely from the Masoretic pronunciation. Some of these names of course 
exist in Greek, Latin etc from pre-Masoretic times, but the Greek forms 
generally start IW- i.e. iota-omega, which shows complete loss of the 
initial short vowel and so doesn't help us to reconstruct it.

> ... There is good  evidence that the tetragrammaton existed
> before the matres were invented, and this means that all the four letters 
> were used as consonants
> and not as vowels.
>  

Now this is interesting. Do you have evidence for the Tetragrammaton 
form, YHWH including a final he, from earlier than the Elephantine 
letters, so pre-exilic? What evidence? And does it actuall predate the 
first recorded use of matres lectionis?

> The two independent forms of the divine name found in the Tanakh are YH and 
> YHWH. My point was that the form YH in proper nouns as a rule comes at the 
> end of the name. In the few instances were these letters are the first 
> element of the name ( I count 14 such names with a Yah-element that can 
> refer to the abbreviated divine name), there is no vowel following the H. 
> So the particular name is formed on the basis of the abbreviated divine name 
> YH and not on the basis of the full name YHWH. ...

What names are you referring to? I know of no names starting yod-he with 
no following holam.

> ... To argue that the "a" vowel 
> (actually qamets and not patah) ...

If a Hebrew word starts with yod-qamets-he with no vowel following the 
he, by a regular rule the qamets is not an "a" vowel but is pronounced 
as an "o". But I know of no names or other words which fit this pattern. 
Of course if you are in fact referring not to a "YAH-element" but to the 
independent word YAH, the vowel is indeed qamets.

> ... of this YAH-element suggests that the full 
> name YHWH was pronounced YAHWE betrays a lack of phonological knowledge. ...

Indeed, which is one reason why I did not argue this.

> ...
>
> The name Yeho$ua is interesting in our context because it has four 
> consonants just as YHWH, ...

This depends what you mean by "consonants". Yeho$ua` as normally spelled 
has not four but five or six letters, of which four are pronounced 
consonants and the other one or two are matres lectionis. YHWH has four 
letters, but I hold that one of these is a mater lectionis, and the word 
consists only of three consonants. I note that the English pronunciation 
Jehovah is similar, consisting of four nominal consonants but in fact 
only three pronounced consonants - because final h is silent in English 
as normally in Hebrew.

> ... and because the the first syllable of the divine 
> element has shewa and the second syllable has holem. This shows that the 
> short vowel shewa would be found in such a word with three syllables and not 
> only in longer words. ...

Agreed, but I never disputed this.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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