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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] [b-Hebrew] YHWH Pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: David P Donnelly <davedonnelly1 AT juno.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] [b-Hebrew] YHWH Pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question
  • Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:59:47 +0100

On 22/07/2005 14:15, David P Donnelly wrote:

...
Peter,
My reprint of the 1866 Letteris Edition of the Hebrew Bible preserves the spelling
[yod-hatef segol-he-holem-vav-hireq-he] 305 times,
where YHWH follows Adonay.
I assume, but do not know for sure,
that the same situation exists in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew text of 1525,
which underlies the Old Testament of the King James Bible
Below is a link to a photo from Smith's "A dictionary of the Bible" published in 1863;
Although first published in 1863, this photo shows how YHWH is pointed when YHWH follows Adonay in the 1866 Leteris edition of the Hebrew Bible.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-7/264290/JehovahSmithsBibleDictionary.jpg
Since the photo was first published in 1863,
3 years before the Letteris edition of the Hebrew Bible was published, it is at least possible that it showed how YHWH was pointed when YHWH followed Adonay
in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew Text of 1525.
Dave Donnelly

You can download an image of the Ben Chayyim text from http://www.bibles.org.uk/, so you don't have to rely on secondary indications like Smith's ancient dictionary. But my point was explicitly about Codex L, the basis of BHS. It seems clear that by Ben Chayyim's time the pointings of YHWH had been regularised, probably to just two - and perhaps another two after prefixes. But at the earlier stage of L there were at least nine different pointings, although four of these are found just once or twice which may indicate copying errors. (Note that the two occurrences of Y:EHWIH are close together ane remote from any other occurrence of the Elohim pronunication.) And it is going back to this earlier stage, before Ben Chayyim, which is helping us to understand the original intentions of these pointings.

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



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