Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Where do you get 'yahwu'? Surely you mean 'yahuw'?!?

James Christian

2010/2/10 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/
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>