Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yohanan bin-Dawidh <yohanan.bin.dawidh AT gmail.com>]

Dear James;



There are two prominent theories as to how to pronounce YHWH amongst those
Karaites who do choose to pronounce such, which I shall present, without
actually writing the names with the vowel points, as to not offend anyone
who thinks we should not do such:



The first theory relies on the fact that the “Ben ‘Asher” family were
Karaites, and as such, they would not purposefully alter the vowel points
within the Hebrew scriptures. This theory though, hinges on the idea that
the “Ben ‘Asher” family were Karaites that thought it was all right to
pronounce YHWH, and thus were honest in the vowel points they placed within
the text. It also hinges on the fact that the text that they were working
from had the proper vowel points, then again, in the opening of the Aleppo
Codex, it states that this text was copied directly from the text received
from the Prophets, if such is to be believed.



The second theory takes a linguistic standpoint. It argues that since the
Creator addresses himself as “Ehyeh”, the first person masculine future
tense form of the verb “Hayah”, meaning “I will be”, that YHWH holds the
vowel points of the third person masculine future tense form of the verb
“Hayah” and/or its archaic form, “Hawah”.  There are actually Karaite
writings from centuries ago, which have YHWH written on them in Hebrew, with
such vowel pointing. This theory though, hinges on the idea that the archaic
verb “Hawah” holds the same conjugation as “Hayah”. The third person
masculine future tense form of the verb “Hayah” is “Yihyeh”, so I will let
you imagine what the pronunciation of YHWH would be with such vowel points.
According to this theory, the name means “He will be”, denoting that our
Creator will be whatever he chooses to be.



There are Karaites who pronounce YHWH according to the first theory, i.e.
the vowel points that exist within the Hebrew scriptures and there are
Karaites who pronounce YHWH according to the second theory.



Regards,



Yo*h*anan bin-Dawidh

Dallas/Fort worth, Texas