Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear list-members,

It is very important to distinguish between 
educated guesses and facts when we discuss the 
relationship between Hebrew and Greek consonants 
and vowels. As a matter of fact, we know very 
little with certainty, and therefore we should 
not pretend that we know much.

In theory it is important, as Randall has 
written, to distinguish between different time 
periods, but in practical work,  as far as Hebrew 
is concerned, we have only one period to deal 
with, namely, the Masoretic period after 500 C.E. 
Therefore, when someone discusses how the LXX 
transcribe Hebrew consonants and vowels, they are 
not comparing the LXX text with the 
contemporaneous Hebrew text-because this text we 
do not have-but they are comparing the LXX with 
the MT. And how definitive are conclusions based 
on such a comparison? True, the consonantal MT 
text is to a great extent confirmed by the DSS, 
and to some degree this is also the case with the 
MT vowels witnessed by plene written vowels in 
the DSS-but there are differences as well. But 
the timbre of each vowel, which is the real crux 
of the matter, is not witnessed in the DSS or 
anywhere else-not even in the MT. For example, it 
seems that shewa in Masoretic times,  was 
pronounced as an "a"-sound rather than as an 
"e"-sound.

We should also keep in mind that in addition to 
the MT vocalization, we also have the Palestinian 
and the Babylonian pointing, which are different 
from the MT vocalization. Several Palestinian 
manuscripts, for example, do not distinguish 
between WAYYIQTOL and WEYIQTOL.

And as far as the Hebrew laryngeals are 
concerned, please consider all the scholarly 
discussions of Goshen-Gottstein, Kutcher, and 
Barr connected with the viewpoints of Paul Kahle. 
There were no agreements! Moreover, when we look 
at different transcriptions from Hebrew into 
Greek, we find great differences regrding some of 
the vowels.

Many years ago I looked at how Greek authors 
rendered Hebrew vowels in the first syllable of a 
word in the MT.  Below are some numbers from 
Origen's Hexapla (ø=zero).

qamets -> alpha (362), epsilon (7), ø (74)
patah -> alpha ( 212), epsilon (86) iota (5), ø (31)
segol->  alpha (42), epsilon (102), ø (39)
sere -> epsilon (34), eta (139), iota (4)
shewa mobile -> alpha (44), epsilon (33), eta 
(3), iota (1), omikron (5), ø (184)
holem -> omikron (24) omikron+upsilon (5), omega (217)
shureq -> omikron (2), omikron+upsilon (144), omega (3)

Both the LXX, Jerome and Josephus to a great 
extent follow the same pattern as seen in 
Origen's Hexapla.  So it is very difficult to 
speak about THE PATTERN of transliterating of 
transcribing Hebrew letters by Greek letters.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo









> Confusion? Greek has it correct.
> Hebrew 'p' was probably aspirated, just like English 'p' is aspirated.
> For aspiration you may be thinking of modern Greek/Erasmian phi='f'?
> Unaspirated Greek pi was like Spanish 'p'. But Hebrew did not have a
> phonemic feature aspirated vs. unaspirated stops the way that Greek
> and Sanskrit did.