Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf" <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no>]

Dear Yohanan,

The name is not lost. It occurs in the Hebrew text of the Tanakh, and Bible 
translations that do not render the name in their translated text, violates 
the fundamental translation principle that a proper name in the source 
language that refers to a particular person or thing should be transcribed in 
the target language according to the stock of phonemes in this language, and 
not be substituted by another word. In connection with the writing of a book 
on the role of theology and bias in Bible translation, I studied all the 
occurrences of divine names in the DSS and other ancient documents. My 
conclusion was that there is no evidence that the pronunciation and use of 
the name of God was terminated in BCE, but that at least some groups still 
used the name in the first century CE. There is even evidence in favor of 
including the name in the New Testament.

One problem with the connection between  יהוה and  אהיה is that the name has 
WAW where the verb has YOD. The letters WAW and YOD could sometimes be used 
in a similar way (cf. Aramaic vs. Hebrew, and the WAW in the name of the 
first woman and the YOD in the adjective), and such a similar use could have 
been the case in older Hebrew. So you need not go to Aramaic, but an older 
form of Hebrew would do as well. Some would say that the name is the Hiphil 
form of the verb, although such a form is not witnessed anywhere.

The main point, in my view, speaking against the connection, is the use if 
1st and 3rd person. The words in Exodus 3:14 can be translated as "I will be 
what I will be." (The present rendering of many Bible translations is highly 
questionable). The meaning of the name, if it is derived from  היה would have 
been "he will be" or "he causes to be." Why should God in his name refer to 
himselfg as "he" whereas in the expression of his qualities he uses "I"?  I 
am not aware of any evidence that connects the verb be/become with the name 
of God. Thus, the name is not lost, even though we do not know the exact 
pronunciation of it. But it the name had a meaning, this meaning is lost.



Best regards,



Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway







Tirsdag 4. Juni 2013 01:06 CEST skrev Yohanan bin-Dawidh 
<yohanan.bin.dawidh AT gmail.com>:

> Hello Karl and Rolf;
>
> I agree with the three syllables, but I am not so sure that the name is
> lost. The Deity gave to us אהיה אשר אהיה and we know that יהוה is related
> to אהיה, which is conjugated from היה. The term יהוה to me seems to be the
> third-person imperfect of the Aramaic counterpart to היה, which is הוה. The
> third-person imperfect of this is יֶהֱוֶה or YeHeWeH. But I, also,
> understand that my understanding could be wrong, and this is why I make no
> definite claim to my perceived pronunciation, even if it can be
> demonstrated with the language.
>
> Regards,
>
> Yo*h*anan bin-Dawidh
> Fort Worth, Texas
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 11:59 AM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Rolf:
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Rolf <rolf.furuli AT sf-nett.no> wrote:
> >
> >> … We do not know the real pronunciation of YHWH, but the clues we have,
> >> based on theophoric names, and corroborated by Akkadian transcriptions of
> >> Hebrew names, are that YHWH had three syllables, that the first was YE, 
> >> and
> >> the last was WA, or WE (segol), and that the middle vowel was O  or U.
> >> There is absolutely no ancient Hebrew evidence in favor of the 
> >> two-syllabic
> >> YAHWEH.
> >>
> >> I don’t think we’ll ever recover the pronunciation of the name, but I
> > think that the closest we can get to it is by analyzing what was the
> > pronunciation of the language as a whole, not just the one name.
> >
> > From what sparse evidence I’ve seen, it seems that pre-Babylonian Exile
> > Hebrew was spoken with all open syllables, all consonants followed by a
> > vowel. The final vowel of a multisyllabic word unstressed. That would
> > indicate that the name had four syllables, but that fairly early on after
> > the Babylonian Exile the unstressed fourth syllable was lost. That would
> > make for three syllables, even as late as the Masoretes.
> >
> > Because of the futility of recovering the pronunciation, I just can’t see
> > making big arguments about it, nor attaching much importance to it.
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >>
> >>
> >> Rolf Furuli
> >> Stavern
> >> Norway
> >>
> >> Karl W. Randolph.
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
> --
> שָׁלוֹם וּבְרָכָה
> יוֹחָנָן בִּן-דָוִד