Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi all,

for the record I pretty much concur with Rolf's analysis of the history of
transmission of NT manuscripts. The overwhelming evidence is that of a
corruption with regard to the name.

With regard to the history of whether the name was used in the second temple
period I also concur. This is often stated as fact but I am yet to see any
hard evidence.

With regard to the names Yahweh and Jehovah. I am dubious of the
reconstruction Yahweh on a number of counts which mostly boil down to
conjugation issues with weak consonants. With regard to Jehovah it is well
known Jehovah is a direct transliteration from the medieval texts using the
consonants YHWH and, debatably, the vowels of adonai. It is unfortunate that
in English this is pronounced with a 'J' sound. This was not the original
intention of the transliteration. It was to be read as Yehovah or Yehowah.
Also worthy of note is the oft stated tradition that these are the vowels of
adonai and not of YHWH. This is often stated as fact and yet we have no
ancient testimony to the validity of this claim. Also there is an issue with
the first vowel. If these are really only the vowels of adonai then why
subtly change the first vowel? Could it not be that the vowels were
coincidentally similar enough to warrant not changing the first vowel?

Also the theophoric evidence, as Rolf has already pointed out, seems to
favour a trisyllabic pronunciation and the vowels (this has been heavily
discussed on this list a number of times). Greek transliterations IAO and
IABA are also interesting (note the B was pronounced V).

James Christian