8/3/2018 [b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question

[b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text

question
Praexus at aol.com Praexus at aol.com
Thu Jul 21 05:12:46 EDT 2005

Previous message: [b-hebrew] Can YeHWaH be pronounced at Exodus 6:2

Next message: [b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Hi b-hebrew

Mail from my other account is jogging through the cyberspacetimecontinuum, so

if I post this twice, apologies.
----------------------------------------------

Hi b-hebrew,

There has been a lot written about the pronunciation of the

Tetragrammaton, and it is very much appreciated. I would like to focus on a couple of
issues. Any corrections to my understanding
of the thread so far greatly appreciated.

For the purpose of the first part of the discussion, what I share probably
works for the Aleppo and/or Leningrad Codexes, the Leningrad is more definite
(see below).

There seems to be 3 possibilities for why there would be a small number

of cholams after the hey (approximately 50 out of 7000 in Leningrad
manuscript, see below), yet most Tetragrammatons are sans a vowel after the hay.

ONE -
Is the cholam after the hey ?

a) added accidentally - as in an accent mark misrendered

b) added accidentally - when it was supposed to be omitted (see below)
c) exactly the way it was meant to be by the scribes.

For awhile it seemed like (c) was being floated, that this might ONLY be on
the YHVH-Adonai
cases, which we know can be special, since the vowels from Elohim would

https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2005-July/024047.html 1/4
8/3/2018 [b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question

change the pronunciation even if all were included. (All of those verses DO have
the cholam I understand.) If that were the case then the vowel would ONLY be
found in the Elohim soundings (YHVH-Adonai), and we would not have a clear
path to what was really the Tetragrammaton hey vowel. However, that view has
been largely bypassed, or superceded, by the discovery that the cholams are NOT
limited to the YHVH-Adonai cases.

Then the possibility of (a) was floated, but this has tremendous
difficulties. The scribes were meticulous, and if they would squiggle an error 50 times
on the Tetragrammaton, then there should be similar errors all over the text
on other words. Maybe a few times on one manuscript, but not enough to match
the data.

That leaves (b), and I am going to share a couple of sentences about that
from an article by Nehemiah Gordon, who has worked with Emanuel Tov with the
Masoretic Text codexes. First
back to the thread.

Alexander,

> The most frequent error is the transformation e, a into e, o, a, thus the
changing of the form YeHWaH into YeHoWaH,

Peter,

I am interested to see here evidence that the holam was found in Aleppo, and
so even earlier than L. This would make me question whether this is really an
"error". Perhaps it was the original pointing, which was for some reason
partially but incompletely suppressed in some MSS. The argument that this is
really a misplaced revia is an unlikely one.
The Masoretic accentuation is very precise, and there is no way that the same
word would have been left accented with both revia and another accent
multiple times by mistake.

So, these ideas of accent errors and such won't wash en masse.
Maybe on one or two verses in one codex, but not as a general error.

Now to Nehemiah Gordon, since we don't have HTML I have to make a few
adjustments.

"by the rules of the Hebrew language the first hey in YHVH must have some
vowel...."

This hasn't really come up directly, the basic rule, on b-hebrew.

There was a little preview leading up to that conclusion, which I bypassed.

"It is possible that the medieval scribes omitted the vowel in the first hey

https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2005-July/024047.html 2/4
8/3/2018 [b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question

of YeHVaH to prevent the readers from reading the name out loud."

Seems to make sense.

A deliberate omission of the cholam to prevent the accidental reading of the
Name.

Nehemiah then contrasts this to the places where the Tetragrammaton is

followed by Adonai, and the vowels for Elohim are included, and there are not text
errors, as if the scribes consciously knew/decided there would be no problem if
Yehowih were pronounced.

"only reason the Masoretic scribes would have left the form Yehowih without
dropping the vowel after the hey is because they knew this was not the true
pronunciation of the divine name. ... the Masoretic scribes knew the name to be
Yehovah and suppressed its pronunciation by omitting the "o". This is confirmed
by the fact that the scribes actually forgot to suppress the vowel "o" in a
number of instances."

This is his critical claim.

Apparently, it may be quite different than what Gerard Gertoux says, and it
appears to be very important to the discussion. All of those cholam (other
than the YHVH-Adonai pairings) are accidentally remaining, (6750 omitted, 50
accidentally retained) showing by the accidental omission (which is far more
likely than an accidental error) what the actual vowel was/is.

"the scribe knew that the word YHVH sounded like Yehovah and even though he
was supposed to suppress the vowel "o" he left it in, in a few dozen instances.
In the L19b Masoretic manuscript, the earliest complete Masoretic manuscript
(and the basis of BHS), the name is written Yehovah 50 times out of a total of
6828. It is significant that no other vowel besides "o" was "accidentally"
inserted into the divine name."

So this is a very clear assertion, and I don't think we have discussed it on

the thread yet.

Major question:
Is Nehemiah correct in his implication that these are not a "special" 50,
like the YHVH followed by Adonai ?

SIDENOTE:
Perhaps a similar discussion might be helpful on the thoeries of the vowel
accompanying the yud. Again, we encounter multiple theories and it might be
helpful to list them with pluses and minues.

QUESTION #2

To some of us the Ben Hayim is the true Received Text, and was even the text

https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2005-July/024047.html 3/4
8/3/2018 [b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question

used for the first two Kittel's editions... however it is unknown to me

whether Kittel's first and second edition match the vowels of the Ben Hayim text.

Now I know the concept of the "Received Text" is not embraced by the majority
of text-critical scholars, however, it does have great historical importance,
and there are many who accept the concept in both the Tanach and NT.

Therefore I am trying to research the Tetragrammaton vowels in the ACTUAL

Ben Hayim text, as used e.g. in the 16th and 17th century texts, These were
translated, I believe, into the Luther, Reina-Valera, Geneva and King James
Bible,. Not the Ben Asher text, but the Ben Hayim text.

Any help on this appreciated :-)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Previous message: [b-hebrew] Can YeHWaH be pronounced at Exodus 6:2

Next message: [b-hebrew] YHVH pronunciation - cholam analysis & Ben Hayim text question
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

More information about the b-hebrew mailing list

https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2005-July/024047.html 4/4