Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Seeing as the heh was not pronounced in Greek, and it appears even
some of the chets as well, I find just as much support for the
pronunciation of "Ya-ho-he" or "Ya-hu-he" as for the "Ya-hu-eh"
mentioned below. I personally find this argument stronger than that
for "Yah-weh".

But by the time transliterations were made, some Jews may have said
"Yah-weh" while others "Ya-hu-he" or yet other pronunciation, of those
who gave a pronunciation at all, so we may be back to square one.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 8/25/06, Marten Docter <martendocter AT gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is "YaH:WeH" an accurate translation of "Iaoue", or is it necessary to
> > engage in scholarly speculation to translate "Iaoue" as "YaH:WeH"?  Many
> > scholarly sources merely state that "Iaoue" favors the translation
> > "Yahweh".
> > Dave Donnelly
>
>
> 'YaHWeH'  is a theoretical vocalization of the tetragrammaton which, as it
> stands now, indeed draws heavily on the argument of the 'Iaoue'-translation.
>
>
> Lately I've been reading a dissertation titled
> "Observations on
>  אהיה אשר אהיה
> הואהא
> and
> שם המפורש"  by one M. Reisel, a Dutch linguist and philosopher. In it, he
> argues for the form יְהוּהַּ  ('Yehuah') or יַהוּהַּ ('Yahuah') as the
> original pronounciation of the tetragrammaton. Thereby he draws heavily on
> the transliteration 'Iaoue'. He argues that in the Septuagint and in the
> Hexapla, medial 'ou' followed by a vowel does not indicate a consonantal wav
> but rather the vowel וּ. He refers to transcriptions like Ἐμμανουελ,
> Σαμουελ, Μελκισουε; ισουωθ = ישועות and σασουου = שסוהו.
> Second, he argues that the final ε must not be seen as representing ה, but
> rather as a rendering of a guttural, which was made audible by a Patach
> furtivum, just as the ε in Νωε (Hebrew נוֹהַ), Μανωε, Ωσηε, Ελισουε,
> Αβισουε, Μελκισουε, and Θαφφουε.
> In the form thus defended (יְהוּהַּ  ('YeHuaH') or יַהוּהַּ ('YaHuaH')), the
> final ה is an integral consonant, which would be in accordance with the fact
> that even on the Mesa-stone the ה is written.
> He offers additional support for this thesis, which I will not discuss here,
> but all in all, his arguments are reasonably strong. His own thesis that no
> sufficient grounds exist in support of the view that a pronounciation YaHWeH
> deserves more credit than the pronounciation YeHuaH, seems to be correct to
> be sure.
>
> We may reach the conclusion that at the present, we cannot reconstruct the
> original pronounciation of the tetragrammaton with certainty, since
> differing pronounciations can be defended succesfully.
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Marten Docter
> theology student from The Netherlands