http://www.karaite-korner.org/yhwh_2.pdf
A very interesting paper. I've only begun to read it.
I just finished watching this lecture.
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/52_gordon.html
I just thought that someone might be interested.
Nehemia Gordon and the pronunciation of the tetragrammaton
by gubberningbody 92 Replies latest watchtower bible
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jwfacts
Interesting.
His claims are quite different to normal consensus on the tetragrammaton. For instance he says Jehovah is not an interlace of YHWH and Adonai. Furthermore he feels that YHWH could not be pronounced Yahweh but more likely Yehovah.
He then says that the emphasis should be on the end rather than ho, such that it is Yehovah.
I would like to hear if others agree with his reasoning.
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Leolaia
It is interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
I cannot comment on the major points of the paper on MT vowel pointing (maybe Narkissos might have something to say), but the argument strikes me as rather incomplete. In particular I was struck by how the question is initially framed:
One of the most popular theories is that the name was pronounced Yahweh and there is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name. However, this consensus is not based on decisive proof. The Anchor Bible Dictionary explains: "The pronunciation of yhwh as Yahweh is a scholarly guess." 1 If "Yahweh" is a wild guess, what do we really know about how the name was pronounced?
Notice the inexplicable shift from "scholarly guess" (without decisive proof) to "wild guess". Decisive proof is lacking in most historical matters; scholars make critical judgments based on the preponderance of the evidence. But such judgments are not "wild" guesses, as if they are unsupported with evidence. That there is a scholarly concensus in such a contentious field of study shows that there must be a reason for agreement.
The problem with the paper as I see it is that it only discusses a portion of the evidence and does not gave a fair indication of all the reasons why Yahweh is preferred by various scholars. The only external evidence cited is Theodoret's vocalization of the name, and other than that the discussion is limited to Ketib-Qere pointings of the name in the MT. The scholarly consensus however draws on a wider range of Greek attestations (in addition to Theodoret's Iabe and Ia, there is also Iaoue from Clement of Alexandria, Iaó from Diodorus Siculus, Origen, and Macrobius, and Iabe from Epiphanius), an Ethiopic attestation as Yawe (in Bodleian MS Aeth. 9.5 6b, in a list of DNs alongside El and Elohe), Coptic Yawe (as found in the Nag Hammadi Apocryphon of John, where it occurs alongside Eloim), cuneiform attestations like Assyrian Ya-a-u- (8th century BC), Babylonian Ya-a-hu-u- (6th century BC), Egyptian attestations of Edomite toponyms as Yhw; (thirteenth century BC), and especially the Hebrew etymology of the name which particularly makes sense with respect to the title yhwh-tsb'wt which may be vocalized as yahwê ts e ba'ôt "He (who) sustains the (heavenly) hosts" (cf. yahwê shalôm "He (who) sustains peace" in Judges 6:24). It is when all this evidence is taken together (and whatever else I forgot) that Yahweh arises as the option preferred by most specialists. It has an intelligible inflected form that fits together well grammatically with tsb'wt or shlwm as an object, it is widely attested in this full form in Egyptian (cf. the final vowel indicated above), Greek, Coptic, and Ethiopic, and from which the theophoric forms yah- and yahu- attested in Greek and Assyrian may readily be derived. Maybe it's still a guess but it is one that has considerable support across a wide range of sources. Notice how the initial vowel /a/ is attested throughout all the sources whereas the paper argues that a schwa was the actual initial vowel. Notice how "Yahweh" is almost exactly the pronunciation in Coptic, Ethiopic, and in some Greek renderings.
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Narkissos
I read it quickly (more and more as I progressed), but in addition to what Leolaia just said the article struck me as methodologically terrible. Ancient consonantic morphology, phonetic history and medieval vowel-pointing are all confused into one (apparently timeless) set of "rules of Biblical Hebrew"; massive affirmations (e.g. one qere pointing YeHWaH in the Leningrad Codex, not indicative of substitution) are later contradicted (e.g. YeHoWiH which indicates substitution, YeHoWaH which does not!). One thing I found extraordinary is the explanation of the abbreviated form Yah by the FIRST and LAST letter (documented from... Greek!) -- while the consonantics variants of postposed theonyms in theophoric names indicate just the opposite: -yhw --> -yh(w). Gertoux did better than that imo.
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gubberningbody
Thanks. I'm going to spend more time on this.
There's an old saying which I agree with : "You can be rich with another's wealth, but you cannot be wise with another's wisdom".
I've never thought of authority or consensus as proof. I'll have to take time to see for myself.
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possible-san
gubberningbody.
It was an interesting material.
"Yehvah" (Yehovah) is a pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton which is written in the Hebrew text.
But it is "Qere perpetuum" (perpetual Qere) in fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QereThat is, the pronunciation of that Tetragrammaton is "ADONAI."
Probably, Jesus also pronounced it such.That exact pronunciation was lost.
The reason no Tetragrammaton was described in the New Testament is that Christian did not pronounce the divine name.
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Earnest
The reason no Tetragrammaton was described in the New Testament is that Christian did not pronounce the divine name.
What a bold assertion. As the Karaite Jews (in contrast to the Rabbinic Jews) continued to use God's name as late as the tenth century why do you think the Jewish Christians did not.
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possible-san
Earnest.
What a bold assertion.
hahaha,
You, the impolite person of the name of "Earnest."
What is your business here?
Is it for teasing me?Shall I am also hard on you?
As the Karaite Jews (in contrast to the Rabbinic Jews) continued to use God's name as late as the tenth century why do you think the Jewish Christians did not.
You are a person who says an interesting thing.
If so, what is the pronunciation of that divine name?
What is the "exact pronunciation" by Karaite Jews?And, what is the reason the divine name is not included in the New Testament manuscripts at all?
Please explain to me logically.
Probably, I am hard on you, when you give strange explanation. -
TheOldHippie
Perhaps, possible-san, you should cool down a bit and allow people to disagree with you without resorting to viewing that as a personal attack and an insult?
And Earnest in fact is also a NAME ...................
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Earnest
possible,
It is not impolite to say it is a bold assertion that you make when you have no evidence for it. If I was living at the time that the Karaite Jews were using the divine name I could tell you how they pronounced it. As I am not I cannot.
There are a number of reasons that I believe the divine name is not contained in existing mss of the New Testament including the large gentile composition of the Christian Church after the death of the apostles and the identification of God's name with the Jews by the Roman authorities, but it is a different thing to argue that the tetragrammaton was not included in the New Testament for which there is evidence rather than that the early Christians did not pronounce it for which there is none.
Finally, I was not being hard on you. I am not hard on anyone unless there is a personal attack on me. Whether you are hard or not is a matter of complete indifference to me.