Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Edward Andrews" <edandrews AT adelphia.net>]

Pawell:

As to the pronunciation “Jehovah;” as I brought out earlier, the origin of 
the word Jehovah used to be attributed to Petrus Galatinus. However, the 
scholarship has proved he was not the one to introduce the pronunciation 
Jehovah, and neither was Porchetus de Salvaticis. As shown by Joseph Voisin, 
the learned editor of the Pugio Fidei (The Poniard of Faith) by Raymundus 
Martini, Jehovah had been used long before Galatinus. Even a generation 
before Porchetus de Salvaticis wrote his Victoria contra Judaeos (1303), the 
Spanish Dominican friar Raymundus Martini wrote his Pugio, about 1278, and 
used the name Jehovah. In fact, Porchetus took the contents of his Victoria 
largely from Martini’s Pugio. In addition, Scaliger proves that Galatinus 
took his De Arcanis bodily from Martini’s Pugio. Galatinus did not introduce 
the pronunciation Jehovah, but merely defended it against those who 
pronounced the Hebrew Tetragrammaton Jova.


In the Hebrew language, “There are, generally speaking, two main 
pronunciations: the Ashkenazi, or German, originated by central and Eastern 
European Jews and carried to all countries to which those Jews have 
emigrated (Western Europe, America, etc.); and the Sephardi, or Spanish, 
used by Jews of Spanish or Portuguese stock in Europe and America and also 
by Jews from Oriental countries. In all universities and throughout Israel, 
the Sephardi pronunciation has been adopted, since it is generally believed 
that this is the pronunciation nearest to the original.” (Biblical Hebrew 
Step by Step, vol. 1, p 33, by Professor emeritus of Hebrew and Semitic 
studies, Menahem Mansoor).


It is a well known fact, that the Ashkenazi Jews had changed the 
pronunciation of the jod to that of the “y” sound. However, the Sephardic 
Jews have kept the original pronunciation of the jod as “j.”


The first symbol representing both the “i” and “j” came into use around the 
beginning of the 9th century C.E. In the late 11th century C.E. brought to 
Saxon, England. Therefore, the first symbol representing the “j” sound was 
in England 500 years before William Tyndale. Early in the 13th century the 
lower case “j” was formed by adding a curl to the bottom of the small ”i.” 
However, the Capital “J” would have to wait until the end of the 16th 
century or the beginning of the 17th century. Thus, The capital “I” was 
still used for the “J” sound when before a vowel.


Regardless of some letters of the English alphabet being invented in later 
centuries, the sound that they represented were in place from the earliest 
of times. Only the symbols that was used to represent the sound changed.


As has been said, Galatinus did not originate the pronunciation “Jehovah.” 
However, Drusius put it out there, as though he did, although, years earlier 
he had stated otherwise himself. Cappel, on the other hand perpetuated this 
as a fact. A few quotes in encyclopedias and from well-known scholars and 
you have a passing on of misinformation for so long, it is hardly observed 
that it did not happen that way.


Ed Andrews

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pawel Sajdek" <pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl>
To: "Shoshanna Walker" <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 4:36 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Tetragrammaton


> Shoshanna Walker napisał(a):
>
> > You mean to say - that in 1520, someone who was called Galatinus,
> > decided, that he knew what was not known for thousands of years by
> > the People who were given the Torah by the Creator of the Universe,
> > and everyone (except for the Jews, of course) said - ok, thanks for
> > letting us know???
> >
> > Is this for real?
> Why not? Don't forget that for Christians the question of how to
> vocalize the Tetragrammaton
> was not that crucial. The name Jesus is pronounced in various ways
> depending on the language
> and no one tries to standardize it or to evoke the original
> pronunciation. To cut it short, they
> might have said 'thanks for letting us know' out of mere indifference.
>
> --
> Pawel Sajdek
> <>< XPICTOC NIKA ><>
>
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