On Jun 3, 2013, at 11:00 AM, b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote: sure, but I think its new environment has to play a role as well. In this case the fact that the lamed is a continuant encourages the speaker to keep the fricative kaf. To confirm this I need to see some examples where the middle consonant is a stop. But my main point is that it is first a deep structure phenomena then by observation it became a masoretic rule. Yes I agree. In fact Nehemiah points out that on two occasions the holem is included. He believes this to be an early scribal slip. The position of Nehemiah Gordon may or may not be true; in my view, his arguments are not convincing. 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.Agreed. I have never liked the YAHWEH argument; it just seems too ad hoc. I would point out that Nehemiah adds to his argument that names do not follow vowel grammar, but instead generally work on a similarity principle, like Manasseh with "forget", and Ephraim with "fruitful". He makes a good point that we have no reason to force a sentence grammar on the tetragrammaton.
Best Regards to you too, Jonathan Mohler Baptist Bible Graduate School Springfield, Missouri, U.S. |
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