do dead sea scrolls use

by booby 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  booby

  HaShem instead of Jehovah?
• 

  Leolaia

  No.

  Ha Shem is one way of pronouncing the tetragrammaton; 'Adonai ("Lord") is another. The scrolls have the tetragrammaton as the consonantal written form; in some places the written form is replaced with 'Adonai (indicating that the scribes themselves often read YHWH as 'Adonai). I think Ha Shem was later, arising when 'Adonai become more restricted to liturgical contexts.

  "Jehovah" itself is an even later form.
• 

  booby

  http://www.betemunah.org/hashem.html

  not sure if this would interest you Leolaia. The reason for my query comes from reading the recent addition of the scrolls http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah#49:7
• 

  Leolaia

  That site refers to the kind of thing I was discussing (ketib-qere):

  "Today it appears that HaShem’s has two names, one, the name we write, i.e. , and the other the name we pronounce, i.e., Adonai."

  The scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls pronounced the written tetragrammaton most often as 'Adonai, which can especially be seen in the Great Isaiah Scroll. From an older post of mine:

  The clearest evidence of 'Adonai as a substitution of YHWH can be found in the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa a ), copied in c. 125-100 BC. It presents YHWH in square Aramaic script but occasionally it represents it as four or five dots as in 40:7 and 42:6. In some places 'Adonai is written above YHWH as in 3:15, 18, 8:7, 20:15, 28:16, and 65:13, and in 3:18 YHWH is athetized by dots. In 3:17, 'Adonai is written in the main text but athetized by dots with YHWH written over it. In 50:5, the text has 'dny h-'lhym for 'dny yhwh, which corresponds to the MT qere for this expression. In 49:22, 52:4, 61:1, the scroll omits 'Adonai where the MT has 'dny yhwh and it has YHWH where the MT has 'Adonai in 6:11, 7:14, 9:7, 21:16, and 28:2. All of this suggests that the scribe pronounced YHWH in his mind as 'Adonai and sometimes wrote it that way and then corrected it to YHWH in the margin. At other times, he wrote YHWH as intended but indicated 'Adonai as its qere. At still other times, he saw 'Adonai and wrote YHWH by mistake. Sometimes he substituted YHWH with dots, the number of which corresponds to the short and plene spelling of 'dny/'dwny. Steven T. Byington after surveying these scribal details concluded that "some passages indicate that yhwh was pronounced 'dny at the time and place of the writing of 1QIsa a ; no passage indicates the contrary" (JBL, 1957). He also points out a curious notation at 49:14 where the MT has "Yahweh has forsaken me, my Lord/'Adonai ('dny) has forgotten me". The scribe did not athetize 'dny but placed above it 'lwhy ("my God") with a dot on both ends of the word. This suggests that 'lwhy was meant as a qere motivated by the prior use of 'dny in the same line as the pronunciation for yhwh.

  Also 'Adonai replaces YHWH in several allusions to the OT:

  Exodus 15:11: "Who among the gods is like you, Yahweh (my kmkh b-'lm yhwh)?

  1QH 15:28 "Who among the gods is like you, Adonai (my kmwkh b-'lym 'dwny)?"
  
  
  Numbers 6:24-26: "May Yahweh bless you (ybrkk yhwh) and keep you. May Yahweh (yhwh) make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you (ychnk); may Yahweh lift his face towards you (ysh' yhwh pnyw 'lyk) and give you peace.
  
  1Q28b 2:22, 3:1, 25: "May Adonai be gracious to you (ychwnkh 'dwny).... May Adonai lift his face towards you (ysh' 'dwny pnyw 'lykh) and smell the pleasing aroma....May Adonai bless you (ybrkkh 'dwny) from his holy habitation".

  The Messianic Apocalypse also features a general use of 'Adonai:

  "Strengthen yourselves, you who are seeking Adonai, in his service. Will you not in this encounter Adonai, all those who hope in their heart? For Adonai will consider the pious and call the righteous by name and his spirit will hover upon the poor, and he will renew the faithful with his strength. For he will honor the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom, freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twisted. And forever shall I cling to those who hope, and in his mercy [...] and the fruit of [...] be not delayed. And Adonai will perform marvellous acts such as have not existed, just as he said, for he will heal the badly wounded and make the dead live, he will proclaim good news to the poor.... Those who do the good before Adonai [...] like these, the accursed. And [they] shall be for death [...] he who gives life to the dead of his people. And we shall give thanks and announce to you [...] of Adonai who [...] all his anointed ones [...] and they will speak the word of Adonai and [...] to Adonai [t]hey will speak [...] " (4Q521 2:3-12, 7:4-7, 8:9-11).

  Hope this helps.
• 

  MoneurMallard

  Booby, this may also help you, Leolaia's biblical exegesis is exactly right.

  http://www.eliyah.com/yhwhdss.html
• 

  booby

  thanks guys!!!