Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Harold:

Your sources are not as aurhoritive as you may want. See below.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold Holmyard" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
> 
> HH: All right. Thanks. You're saying that what seems quite certain to
> you is that the divine name had three syllables, with the second one
> being "o." Most scholars, according to reports both Catholic,
> Protestant, and Jewish, apparently believe that two syllables is closer
> to the original sound, though some allow that it could have been three
> syllables:
> 
> http://www.bible-researcher.com/driver1.html
> 
This researcher first said that the pronunciation was lost before 
70 AD, then cited sources from after as proof.

> http://www.jesuswalk.com/names-god/yahweh_jehovah.htm
> 
This author simply takes the Yehweh pronunciation for granted, 
gives no evidence for it.

> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08329a.htm
> 
This author cites unnamed scholarly consensus and some of 
their reasons. But he acknowledges that this is not proof.

> http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc12/htm/ii.xxviii.ii.htmmm
> 
Rehash of the same arguments as above.

> http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=N
> 
This author takes the HWH root as the reason for the pronunciation.
> 
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard

Is YHWH from the verb HWH? Conjecture, some would call it the 
root fallacy.

Was the Hebrew pronunciation similar to the Samaritan? Contradicted 
by the early Greek transcriptions. The Samaritan pronunciation could 
have been a way to say the name without really saying it.

Ancient Greek transliterations, while good enough to show that they 
contradict the Samaritan pronunciation, the lack of the H sound make 
them an uncertain source. In other words, they don't contradict my 
conjectured pronunciation of "Yahohe", nor "Yahwey", nor "Yahoweh". 
Or more accurately, evidence for all three of these pronunciations 
could be adduced from one or more of these trascriptions.

>From the theophoric use in names, I come to the conclusion that 
YHWH was originally pronounced Yahohe or something similar. But 
this is conjecture, no less so than the conjectured pronunciations 
listed above, and I expect other people to disagree.

Karl W. Randolph.

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