...Looking into this a little further:
To bring this back to the original point, which really does concern the pronunciation of biblical Hebrew:
We need to dissociate this discussion from the contentious but very general issue of Byzantine vs. Alexandrian text and look at the evidence for individual readings, and the earliest Greek MSS (and perhaps early translations) which have these readings. Here is a start, taken from the Nestle-Aland 27th edition apparatus:
Matthew 4:13:
Evidence for KAPERNAOUM: C L W ͨ (Θ) 𝒻1,13 𝕸
Evidence for KAFARNAOUM: ℵ B D W* Z 0233. 33 pc lat(t) co
The oldest evidence for KAPERNAOUM is C, 5th century. ℵ (alef = Sinaiticus) and B (Vaticanus) are a century earlier. But I accept that this is by no means decisive one way or the other. What might be decisive would be evidence from early papyri. There is no such evidence for this verse, so maybe I should look elsewhere.
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