Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Garth Grenache <garthgrenache AT hotmail.com>]

Dear all at b-hebrew, peace!

My name is Garth Grenache and I am an internet friend of Dave Donnelly.  
I live in the land down under.

I have been seeking the original pronunciation of YHWH for several years, 
publically proposing and challenging various theories on YHWHgroup ( 
groups.yahoo.com/group/YHWHgroup/ ) whilst developing my understanding of the 
history of Hebrew and the Semitic languages.

From YHWH came Yah, Yəhô-, -yāhû, Greek iaō, "Temple of YHW",
  and somehow also Greek 'Samaritan' forms iabe, iaou(e) and magic papyrus 
iaōouēe.
A good theory needs to give a good explanation of all the data.

In 2006 I proposed a reconstruction that I've not been able to better to this 
date, though it has been peer reviewed and critiqued on the above forum and 
elsewhere.

Dave Donnelly has prompted me to post my also before your eyes, so that you 
too may critique it.

Scholars like Gesenius could determine from the above forms that the Name 
began with Yahw-, and had a final vowel other than î or û.
(If any reader is in doubt about this, I refer them to...
 
http://garthg.multiply.com/journal/item/110/The_ancient_and_correct_pronunciation_of_YHWH
...where I give convincing linguistic evidence of this.)


Why did Gesenius and like-minded scholars accept 'e' for the final vowel?
*Greek 'Samaritan' forms iabe, iaou(e) and magic papyrus iaōouēe supplied an 
'e'.
*Hebrew Imperfective verbs with weak 3rd root consonant have final 'e'. YHWH 
appeared to be the same.

Then why reject the 'e'?
*The Name is as old as Adam and Eve (Ge 4:1) and the first Semitic language 
did not have 'e'. Therefore 'e' could not be original.
*Even centuries before before the iabe/iaou(e)/iaōouēe forms, the final vowel 
was already lost from the pronunciation of YHWH, not appearing in Greek forms 
iaō or Hebrew "Temple of YHW", which together suggest that the pronunciation 
of YHWH had long come to be Yahô.  If 'e' were original, and was a 
contraction from -ayu/-iyu as in other 3-He Imperfectives, why then did the 
verbs retain their final 'e', but YHWH did not?  And having lost its final 
true vowel, from where did the final 'e' come from?  Perhaps from the 
assumption that it was pronounced like the other 3-He Imperfectives which end 
in -e!  Or...
*The magical papyri's iaōouēe is in the context of a syncretist's god who is 
simultaneously both Zeus and YHWH: "I summon thee the, ruler of the 
gods--Zeus, Zeus, that thunderest on high, king Adonai, lord Iaoouee."  The 
long string of vowels is impossible in Hebrew, and includes every Greek vowel 
letter.  It is mystical and may be a syncretism of iaō with iowe/iowi -Latin 
inflectional forms of of Iuppiter (Jupiter), who is Zeus! ( See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyptoton ).
*Samaritan "Iaoue">"Iabe" may reflect the same syncretism of iaō with iowe, 
even as the Samaritans were syncretists who "feared YHWH but also served 
their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been 
carried away" (2Ki 17:33).
Therefore, Hebrew 3-He Imperfectives suggest that the missing final vowel of 
Yahw- should be an 'e', and those who believed that YHWH was Iawe(Jupiter) 
had even more reason to reconstruct the lost final vowel as 'e'.  But it 
could not have been original, even as the 'e' in 3-He Imperfectives was not 
original!


If not final 'e', then what?
*Ex 3:14 implies that the Name means "He is", and it's consonants also 
suggest the root HWY which means 'be/become' and is attested in both East and 
West Semitic, being present in Akkadian as well as Amorite, Hebrew and 
Aramaic.
*Qal Stative Imperfectives in Central Semitic tend to have 'a' between the 
2nd and 3rd root consonants.  "He is" would have been *yahwayu.
Therefore 'a' was the original vowel after the 'w' in Yahwa, even before the 
Name's formation, being present there in the verb *yahwayu.

But what happened to the -yu in yahwayu?  Why has it been arbitrarily 
truncated?
*I suggest it was not an arbitrary truncation, but a calculated truncation by 
YHWH Himself.
*If He gave His Name as Yahwayu or Yahway, it would undergo regular 
inflection to become Yahwaya, which would be suggestive of the Subjunctive 
verb, with the inappropriate meaning of "He would be".
*Truncating the final -yu produced an indeclinable form Yahwa, to which this 
inappropriate meaning would not be attached.
(*A declinable form Yahu/Yaha/Yahi was also supplied, which became the short 
form "Yah".)

How did the Yəhô- names become?  -Further evidence for final -a in Yahwa.
*Even as in regular sentences, Yahwa was followed by other words to form 
names such as Yahwanatanu.
*The -wa- in these names became softened to -ô-, producing Yahônatan, even as 
in 'aḫwatu > 'aḫôt "sister".
*This left the first short 'a' in an open syllable, exposing it to 
antepenultimate reduction: Yahô- >Yəhô-.
*The reduction of -wa- to a close-mid vowel ô, rather than close vowel û can 
be explained by the presence of the 'a'. If the final vowel of YHWH were a 
close vowel i or u, we would expect û to result.
*From Yəhô- names, or independently, the absolute Name Yahwa became 
pronounced as Yahô (as evidenced by "Temple of YHW" and BC Greek iaō).

How did -yahû names become?
*The theophoric name's case marker must be appended to the final consonant of 
a name ending in -yahwa, producing -yahwu.
*e.g. 'Elî + yahwa + final case marker -u -> 'Elîyahwu 
*Here with u, the final '-wu' was softened to long -û:  -yahwu > -yahû
*Penultimate augmentation of the vowel in a resulting open syllable 
subsequently occurred: -yahû > -yāhû


In summary: final -a in YHWH is suggested by...
*The presence of 'a' in the second syllable of Qal stative Imperfectives 
yaCCaCu, yahwayu 'he is' being the origin of the name.
*The close-mid ô vowel found in Yəhô- names in the place of 'wa', v.s. the 
close û vowel found in -yahû names from -yahwu.


Thanks for reading.  Your response and criticism is most welcome.
Kind regards,

Garth Grenache.

A more complete presentation of this Yahwa theory can be found here:
http://garthg.multiply.com/journal/item/110/The_ancient_and_correct_pronunciation_of_YHWH

                                          
_________________________________________________________________
Find a great deal on your next car. Get straight to the Point.
http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/157637060/direct/01/