Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi,

2009/12/29 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.


I'd always interpretted this phenomenon in exactly the opposite way. With
the name YHWH we see a resistance against the natural evolution of the
language. Firstly, we see this resistance in that we hypothesis that
proto-b-hebrew used the verb HWH where we see HYH used in b-hebrew. Then
secondly we see this resistance in that early MSS using the Aramaic alphabet
still use the Hebrew alphabet for the name YHWH. We see this resistance to
change even in the early LXX MSS. Then eventually this gets misinterpretted
and the Greeks start reading the name as if it were written with Greek
letters rather than Hebrew letters or Aramaic letters. Later still we
finally see evidence of the substitution starting with KS abbreviation which
later becomes KYRIOS but contextual clues still leave it clear that the name
was intended because KYRIOS is used in contexts without the definite article
where you would expect it. i.e. a title is seen to be used as a proper name
where we see that the original Hebrew MSS used the proper name YHWH.

James Christian