Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

It was nice to see Kevin's response correcting some misleading and factually
incorrect argumentation. So I will just add a brief PS:

First, in confirmation of Kevin, yes, in the first century Greeks all over the
Mediterranean pronounced OY s a single high-back vowel. The simple Y
had already long become a rounded front vowel (umlaut u). (In fact, the major
dialects had dropped OI into this phoneme, too.) (The Greek spelling
system originally reflected pronunciation in the 7th century and then again,
as reformed, in the 4th century BCE. Later writers wrote etymologically
[i.e. 'historically'] or else used/lapsed into their current systems.)

To add OY examples that Kevin asked for:
Josephus gives many examples with names like OYESPASIANOS
and OYAROS-- Vespasian, Varus.
And since the first century is when 'B' was softening in Greek, one even finds
forms like FLABIA (normally FLAOYIA)  SALBIOY [>L. salvius] and an
early NT ms. p46 has SILBANOY at 2Cor 1.19, corrected to SILOYANOY.

And Garth was correct to list LXX Ps 118:41 OYAY, though as a section
heading, one would want to check the manuscripts to see just which ones
included it.

But the bottom line, even if the information from crossing threads were
cleaned up, is that the questions will remain unresolved.


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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