Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Hi,

Quoting Yodan <yodan AT yodanco.com>:

> Thank you. I am curious to know whey Ester, which clearly has a T (as there
> is a dagesh in TAV) became Esther. I'm assuming that there is a T (in
> addition to TH) in Greek. Is this correct?


Did you look at the greek text in the link I sent you? The answer is  
clearly 'No!'. There is only a theta in the place of the Hebrew Tav. I  
think there are a number of things we need to consider here:

a) The pointing is late. This is no indication of how it was  
originally pronounced.
b) We do not know with certainty how the Greek theta was pronounced by  
the translator who chose to use the theta (let alone the general  
pronunciation of that era) - it could have been a th sound or merely  
an aspirated t or who knows
c) We do not even know with certainty the pronunciation of English  
'th' at the time it was chosen in English translations.
d) All we really know with any kind of certainty is that the  
pronunciation of English th has many variations even today in the many  
different accents and dialects of English


James Christian

> *********************************
> Rivka Sherman-Gold
> YODAN Publishing
>
> **********************************
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Read [mailto:J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk]
> Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 1:11 AM
> To: yodan AT yodanco.com
> Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] FW: Ester / Esther
>
> In Greek E???? . See Esther 2:10 at
> http://www.septuagint.org/LXX/Esther/2 for an example. For those whose
> email clients cannot view Greek characters there is clearly a theta
> (th) in the position in question.
>
> For Latin see http://www.latinvulgate.com/verse.aspx?t=0&b=19&c=2
> chapter 2 and verse 8 for Hester.
>
> In order to understand the transmission of names you have to
> understand that names were first transliterated into Greek (a language
> with different phonetic limitations to Hebrew) and then into Latin
> (another language with different phonetic limitations) and that most
> of our transliterations have come through this double filter and then
> been influenced by our own languages phonetic limitations.
>
> An interesting case study are the names Jacob and Joshua in English
> translations. Somehow, they have managed to become Jacob and James for
> Iakov and Joshua and Jesus for Yehoshua. While it is relatively a
> simple exercise to see how Iakov underwent various transformations to
> become Jacob and how Yehoshua became Joshua it is presently beyond me
> just how exactly  English  versions got this strange fork when the
> Latin versions are devoid of it.
>
> e.g. http://www.latinvulgate.com/verse.aspx?t=1&b=20 shows that James
> is clearly Iakobus in Latin.
>
> James Christian
>
> James Christian
>
> Quoting Yodan <yodan AT yodanco.com>:
>
> > Does anyone have an explanation to why the transliteration of Ester is
> > Esther, considering the fact that TAV has a Dagesh and, therefore, has
> been
> > pronounced T and not TH all along. I wonder if anyone knows how this name
> > was transliterated into Greek or Latin - whether this name's third
> consonant
> > is transliterated as T or TH.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >
> >
> > *********************************
> >
> > Rivka Sherman-Gold
> >
> > YODAN Publishing
> >
> > P.O. Box 60655
> >
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> >
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> >
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The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.