Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Yitzhak,

there's really no two ways about this. Greek Omega represents a long o
vowel. The same thing we would expect when transcribing a holem with a final
waw (with W phonology rather than V phonology). I really don't see how you
can expect me to believe that the Greeks would choose the long o vowel to
represent a w/v consonant with no preceeding vowel. If this were the case
you would be able to refer me to transcriptions of names with a w/v
consonant with no preceeding o vowel. I don't think you will be able to do
that.

James Christian

2010/1/17 Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>

> On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 7:37 PM, James Christian wrote:
> > Hi,
> > thanks for that. I just checked out the fragment you
> > mentioned http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//lxxjewpap/4QLevB.jpg YHWH is
> > transcribed as IAW (Iota, alpha, omega). This would suggest Yahow just
> like
> > the theorphoric names we've mentioned and seems to support Yahow...
> variants
> > rather than Yahweh.
> > James Christian
>
> No, it does not suggest "Yahow".  The -w in "Yahow" is a
> misinterpretation, as if any
> other addition would continue the w.  But this is not the case, and is
> unsupported by
> the evidence, and even rejected by the evidence (the other evidence I
> provided in
> my post, which your response ignores).  Also, -w- is transcribed in
> Greek as ou so we
> would expect iawou if there was indeed a w.  Furthermore, even though
> this particular
> pronunciation does not support in itself Yahwe, it does not preclude
> another
> competing pronunciation alongside it.  As I mentioned the competing
> prefix forms
> attested in early Hebrew inscriptions suggest strongly that h- had no vowel
> following it, and -w- was  consonantal.  This means that "Yahow" is a
> misrepresentation of what really went on.  It's not that -w- followed
> an -o- vowel.
> It's that -w- was reduced to an -o- vowel at the end of the word:
> *yahw > *yaho,
> after which open vowels lengthened: > ya:ho:.  In this environment of
> Judean
> yhw-, Israelite yw-, just like the Judean form became yah/yaho, so too
> the northern
> form might have become yaw/yawe.  Your response, which completely ignored
> everything I had to say, only gives a very strong and bad feeling that
> your take on
> the evidence is very one sided and close minded, even going to the point of
> now
> quoting me out of context.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
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