Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <Yigal.Levin AT biu.ac.il>]

Doug, I'm not sure where you get יְהוָ  from. Two things:

 

1. The niqqud was added to the text by the Masoretes, and reflects their way of reading. No pre-Mesoretic manuscripts have the niqqud.

2. YHWH – יהוה – is by far the most common form in all ancient manuscripts, including the DSS. The fact that it is also used widely in Iron Age (that is, First Temple or pre-exilic Period) Hebrew inscriptions shows that that is the form that was comment used by Israelites in that period as well.  

 

What we're discussing here, from my understanding, is not how the name was written but how it was pronounced. Presumably, during the First Temple Period YHWH was vocalized in some way, and we really do not have enough information to know exactly how. BTW, there may have been different precise vocalizations in different regions.

All the various Greek mss. can tell us, is how their writers could best approximate the way the name was pronounced in whatever circles they operated in during the various stages of the Second Temple Period. What we do know is that eventually, most Jews began saying "Adonai" instead of vocalizing "YHWH", and this practice was emulated buy the translations by using Kurios. We do not have enough information to trace the precise process by which this happened. In any case, why is this really important?

 

 

Yigal Levin

 

From: Belot [mailto:dbelot AT bigpond.net.au]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 12:31 AM
To: Yigal Levin
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] statements of faith

 

Thanks Yigal , I do  not want to do that, I do not want to overstep your conditions.

 

Please could you tell me when Gods name  יְהוָ .,became rendered to YHWH .

 

Did the letters  YHWH appear in any manuscripts that we have before 600ad , and if they did when did they and by whom.

 

This question seems unanswerable  so far.

 

Is is possible .

 

Many thanks ....

 

doug belot