Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> >Sure. Try finding anyone who cared to learn ancient Greek, and make him
> >believe ihie could be transliterated as Iao.
> >
> Why should I attempt this, as I don't believe it myself. You are
> attacking a straw man, as NO ONE except you in this discussion, except
> yourself, has suggested a divine name anything like "ihie".
>

Besides your imagined hophal Yahwe, Jews generally accept the niphal Yehawe;
iehawe is very much like ihie in that he or waw is strong, consonantal, and
is unlikely to result in Iao, the best-attested transliteration.

> Later, you wrote:
>
> >Greek and Latin forms of Iao is all that we got for ancient
> >pronunciation of the name.
> >
>
> This is not true. We also have forms like IAOUE and IABE, as well as AIA
> and others. All of these forms need to be interpreted. But they are all
> basic evidence which need to be treated a priori on the same level.
>

I already answered this. Iaoue is quite evidently Iao+h. Iabe might be
iehawe or iahwe, but no less likely is letter-for-letter transcription of
YHWH. aia could be 1s FT, but equally well this could be an isolated garbled
pronunciation. Iao, on the contrary, is attested in independent sources, and
thus very credible.

Vadim Cherny