Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Yigal,

I want to take issue with one word in your post, namely, with the word 
"known."  The correct statement should be that "it is widely taught that 
"Jehovah" is a mistranslation." In order to know that something is 
wrong, one has to know what is right, and as you are aware of, we cannot 
today know how YHWH was pronounced in the past.

The basis for the widely held view that "Jehovah" is a mistranslation, 
is that the masoretes pointed YHWH with the vowels of of )DNY, because 
the divine name should not be pronounced. And combining these vowels 
with the consonants JHWH gave the form "Jehovah."This origin of 
"Jehovah" may or may not be true. But even if it is true, it does not 
rule out that YEHOWAH could be the original pronunciation, or that it 
could be  close to the original pronunciation.

I have several times on this list pointed out that the evidence we find 
in the ancient Hebrew texts suggests that the name YHWH  had three 
syllables. I have also pointed out that the two-syllabic word "Yahweh" 
is an artificial construction that lack any basis whatsoever in ancient 
Hebrew texts. This means that in any case, because of its three 
syllables,"Jehovah" is closer to the original pronunciation than "Yahweh."

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo

Yigal Levin wrote:

> I think that it is so widely known that "Jehovah" is a mistranslation, that
> no-one bothered to correct it. 
>
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> Yigal Levin
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>