Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Peter,

Dear Peter,

I do not know whether your claim that the Greeks did not use doble iota 
as consonants is true or false. But the lack of such in a few texts is 
not sufficient to make a rule. However, the Greek letter theta can be 
doubled. In Psalm 18:40 Origen transcribes the WAYYIQTOL as OUQEZORHNI, 
in 30:12 as OUEQAZERHNI, AND IN 18:36 as OUQEQQEN. Note particularly the 
epsilon after OU- in 30:12 and the geminated theta in 18:36. These 
examples suggests that there was no gemination in WAYYIQTOLs in Origen's 
Vorlage.

Again, if Origen sought to restore the original vowels and consonants, 
the lack of difference between  WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL in his writing 
suggests that there was no "original" diffeerence between the two. In 
any case, a graphic difference between YIQTOLs with prefixed WAW is not 
found in Origen, in the LXX, or in the Samaritan tradition. The first 
time we see such a difference is in the Masoretic text.

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


Peter Kirk wrote:

> On 15/03/2006 12:37, Rolf Furuli wrote:
>
> > Dear Yitzhak,
> >
> > Origen transcribes WA- and WE- as OU- before nouns particles and 
> > other words as well as before verbs. It does not appear that YOD is 
> > ever geminated in the manuscripts that have been found, but the 
> > material is very small. I am not aware of any instance where YOD 
> > should have been geminated, but is not.
> >
> >   
>
> Except of course for OUIEDABBER in Psalm 18:48, which if you are 
> comparing with the Masoretic text certainly "should have been 
> geminated". The absence of any examples of consonantal geminated iota 
> in the Hexapla, and for that matter in all of the transcribed Hebrew 
> etc names in the LXX and the New Testament (even where the underlying 
> Hebrew has geminated yod as in `ayyah, 1 Chronicles 7:28, where the 
> Greek is GAIA), clearly demonstrates that Greek simply did not use 
> double iota as a consonant. This is sufficient in itself to explain 
> the lack of gemination in the Greek form OUIEDABBER, even if the 
> underlying Hebrew was in fact geminated.