Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

This is getting a little off field for B-Hebrew, so I’ll broaden it to
include Second Temple practice.

It is commonly recognized that there often is a disconnect between written
and spoken practice, a practice made explicit in the Kethib/Qere recording
of the Masoretes. That some of the Aramaic square character DSS included
YHWH in archaic Hebrew font indicates that this already signifies that
practice, namely that the name is not to be pronounced, rather a Qere should
be spoken. The same with the Greek texts that survive. The tradition that
has come down to us is that normally )DNY should be spoken when YHWH is
written. In Greek that word is kurios.

While I am convinced that the pre-Babylonian exile speakers pronounced the
name, the same cannot be confidently said of Second Temple period speakers.
The very fact that the writers often made the distinction either by font (in
the Hebrew texts) and/or language (especially in the Greek texts) is a clue
that the substitution was made in common speech.

As far as the New Testament is a clue to Second Temple spoken practice, it
was not written as a “scholarly” document, rather one using the language of
the street to speek to the common people. As such, it is less likely to
affect a written pronunciation that is to be substituted when spoken.

I will go so far as to say that saying “Yahweh” is a barrier to
communication, not as much today as a generation ago. The same could be said
of Second Temple speech, if the name was not normally pronounced, thus to do
so would interfere with communicating other ideas that the speaker may have
considered more important. Hence the writers of the New Testament would go
along with Second Temple period tradition, not as superstition, rather as a
way most expeditiously to communicate their message.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 3:25 AM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> Hi Karl,
>
> agreed. This is also a possibility. Just to make things clear that massive
> contradiction in terms is that Jesus would be a teacher with such a take on
> things and then refuse to use the name. Of course, as you have noted whether
> the authographs contained the name or not is another issue entirely.
>
> But then again if the NT autographs were written by first generation
> Christians who tried their best to emulate Jesus example then that also
> raises issues.
>
> James Christian
>
>