Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Steven Avery <stevenavery AT verizon.net>]

Hi,

> Curt Bussey wrote:
> years ago I used to pronounce the Name Yehovah 
due to Nehemia Gordon's book. ....

Yohanan bin-Dawidh
> Nehemia Gordon believes the Tetragrammaton 
> was/should be pronounced as Yehovah/Yehowah, 
> based upon his notion that the Karaite Ba’al 
> ha-Masorah, Aharon ben-Mosheh ben-Asher, would 
> not have in good conscious defiled the Miqâra.

Steven
My recollection is that there are a number of 
reasons given by Nehemiah for his position.

Yohanan bin-Dawidh
> This might very well be the case, but this does 
> not account for the various places within the 
> Aleppo Codex where the Tetragrammaton is written 
> with different pronunciations (Y’howah is used 
> 29 times | Yehwih is used 304 times | Yehowih is 
> used once at Judges 16:28 | Y’howih is used 23 
> times | Y’hwih is used 207 times | Y’hwah is 
> used 6,268 times). Then, again, maybe the name 
> has different pronunciations at different 
> locations due to the language used in those 
> locations, but this still would not account for 
> Nehemia Gordon's stance on the subject.

Steven
Looking at one page that has the Nehemia Gordon 
approach (I listened to him speak on this over a 
decade ago in Talpiot, it was a fine little 
seminar) does have a discussion that probably 
applies to some of the variants above.

The Pronounciation of the Name
Nehemia Gordon
http://www.slideshare.net/davehome/yehovah-pronounciation
http://lhim.org/blog/2010/03/11/the-pronunciation-of-the-name/
Another point worth noting is that in the Aleppo 
Codex, the most precise manuscript of the 
biblical text, the name YHVH gets the vowels 
Yehovih when it is juxtaposed to the word Adonai. 
It seems that the “i” (chiriq) in Yehovih is a 
reminder to the reader to read this word as 
Elohim (God), since reading it Adonai would result in Adonai twice in a row.

Thus Nehemiah is saying that not in every case 
are the vowels "Pronounced as it is Written" 
(Gertoux). And that some forms are specifically to indicate the word as Elohim.

See also:

https://www.facebook.com/NehemiaGordon/posts/10151590815363629
The Tetragrammaton in Ezekiel 28:22 in the Aleppo 
Codex. In this instance the name is juxtaposed to 
"Adonai" and traditionally read as "Elohim" to 
avoid reading "Adonai" twice in a row. Rather 
than inserting the vowels of Elohim, the scribe 
inserted the true vowels "Yehovah"!

https://www.facebook.com/NehemiaGordon/posts/368681429811291?comment_id=5222061
Psalms 68:27 in the Aleppo Codex (right) and the 
Leningrad Codex (left). A scribal error in the 
Leningrad resulted in the name YHVH being written 
instead of Adonai. The scribes who preserved the 
Hebrew text of Scripture had a master list of 134 
places that the word Adonai is supposed to appear 
by itself without the name YHVH, precisely to 
prevent this type of error from happening. The 
scribe who copied the Leningrad transcribed the 
other 133 verses in accordance with the list but 
accidentally wrote YHVH in this verse. The total 
number of instances of the Tetragrammaton in the 
Hebrew Bible is usually cited as 6,828 based on a 
digitized text of the Leningrad Codex. Because of 
this error, the true number should be revised to 6,827.

Now, it is possible that Nehemia does not have a 
full-orbed consistent position on the Aleppo 
Codex.  However, he is clearly well aware of the 
scholarship issues, I would like to see the 
question addressed to him publicly (e.g. on his 
blog) and his response, before concluding that there is any gap.

Subject was:
Re: [b-hebrew] G.Gertoux and the Name...

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Bayside, NY