Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Garth:

This whole process is an exercise in speculation, with speculation built
upon speculation.

The nineteenth century guess that “Yahweh” was a possible pronunciation for
יהוה was based on nineteenth century ideas of Hebrew pronunciation, based on
how they read the Masoretic points.

I don’t know anyone who with a straight face can insist that the Masoretes
faithfully, without error, preserved Biblical pronunciations: rather what
they did was to preserve dialectal pronunciations from their era. So at this
stage you are working with a nineteenth reconstruction that is based on a
late dialectal reconstruction: two layers (at least) removed.

We see from earlier transliterations, which are frustratingly rare, that
pronunciations differed over time and in different places. The reason they
are frustratingly rare is that there are not enough of them to indicate
which variations are due to change over time, and which are due to dialectal
variation, nor do they give a sure indication of what was Biblical
pronunciation during Biblical days.

Then you added another layer of speculation by adding references to
proto-Semitic, a language that nowhere is found in the archeological record.

With too many layers of speculation, this whole exercise starts to take on
an aura of unreality, sort of a scholar’s version of the Twilight Zone.

About the only thing in this discussion that we can say with certainty, and
I would say near 100% certainty, is that “Yahweh” was not the pronunciation
of יהוה during Biblical times.

Karl W. Randolph.