Posted by J.H. on March 23, 1999 at 16:34:48 {MWKQmDRkic4cM}:
Janey, Since your attack on me contained so many personal attacks, in violation of the FPP, I fear an eager moderator may delete it. I request the moderators to not do this, but I nevertheless chose to post a new
thread and remove the insults and irrelevancies from my quotations of your message. As we can easily see, when the insults are pruned, you don�t actually say much. But thanks for providing Stafford�s own words on this question. On the thread on Stafford refutes White below J.H. actually clings to that old belief that "Yahweh" is God's name, and argues against Stafford's view that the trisyllable form "Yahaweh" is more accurate. Well, I�ll give you a few points for rhetoric, but none for substance, Janey. Very interesting choice of words: "J.H. actually clings to the old belief�" It sounds like exactly something Gary would write on my views about chronology. The
sentence gives the impression that the "old" view is somehow superseded. This is wrong. It is actually the other way around. "Jehovah" is the old form, which was demonstrated to be a misunderstanding and thus totally eradicated from the
scholarly world in the late 19th and the 20th century. There is a near-total consensus, and only a very, very small minority of scholars rejects it. You can look up almost any book on Near-Eastern religion, or
Biblical studies, and find the form "Yahweh" used exclusively. The form "Jehovah" in a recent book actually marks it as a book by a fringe religious sect, like the JWs. It is also worth noting that Biblical studies are not physics.
Actual scholarly studies are closely intermingled with theology. I am sure Stafford and Furuli will have no problem agreeing with this statement. And considering the strong position of the King James Version among British and American
religious people, it is no surprise that we will find one or two holdouts who cling to (and I use the word in the appropriate sense) the old usage we find there. Without the emotional baggage the KJV represents, like the fetish for
the form "Jehovah" we find among JWs, this would not have been an issue. Stafford also makes a simple point about Anglicized spelling of biblical names And, as I wrote in the original message, I
have no problems with that. The only issue I challenge is the assertion that the form Jehovah more correctly represents the original Hebrew form of YHWH, compared to Yahweh. and points out that the form "Jehovah"
lives up to this practice and represents a trisyllable form of the divine name, and is therefore a "closer apporximation than Yahweh." First, he does not "point out" this, he asserts it with no evidence. If
there was evidence/citations, they were in the footnotes that you left out. Second, the last part of that sentence is gibberish. It does not follow from the premise that "Jehovah" is trisyllable that it is "a closer apporximation [sic]."
That should be self-evident, at least to the other readers of this board. The word trisyllible only means three syllables, as in 1-2-3. That is no argument for superiority (quite the contrary). I have no idea what would be the
twosyllable form of my proper name "Jan." Will you argue that "Janey" is a correct twosyllable form of my name? I will disagree. One is me, the other is you. But since J.H. has such a hard time understanding these simple
points, and s8ince he relies on the Jerome Bible Commentary and some journals who merely present the traditional view, Look how easily actual evidence is brushed aside? No attempt is made here to deal with arguments,
and even less the merit of the scholars or the sources. Somehow, for an arcane reason I cannot see, the fact that a view is "traditional" somehow proves it is wrong, at least in Janey�s little world. You know, Janey, I also happen to "cling
to" the "traditional" and "old" view that the Earth is round, that it rotates around the Sun, and that Babylon fell to Cyrus in 539 BC. Any problem with that? And you know what? The reason this is the "traditional" view is that it
is supported by evidence. And "evidence" is something sorely lacking from your posting, and something Stafford is very, very weak on. I spent several hours last night typing in paragraphs from Stafford's book where he
utterly destroys the "Yahweh" view. If this is all Stafford can do, I almost feel sorry for him, having to defend the indefensible JW dogmas. I�m appalled that anyone can be persuaded by so weak, tendentious arguments.
But, as I said, �in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king,� and Stafford uses quite enough trisyllable words to impress the window cleaner university students he indeed writes for. J.H. calls his sources, "These articles were written by honest and real scholars, which is why they are accepted in peer-reviewed journals that would reject the garbage people like Furuli, Stafford or White usually writes." We all know that "real
scholars" to J.H. are only those that agree with him. This is the usual argument from creationists as well. When it was put forth in the Arkansas trial, it was utterly demolished by the failure of the creationists to
come forth with a single article even submitted for publication. You are dishonest. I have already explained my main criteria: that it�s peer-reviewed. Another is that it�s reasonably independent. That is, that the journal will not
reject otherwise sound arguments just because the editorial position is different. But J.H. does not give any data from this articles at all. I doubt he even read them. Indeed, I
And I don�t "doubt" that you did not read any of my references. I know you didn�t.
Here is what Stafford has to say:
"Hebrew personal names with theophoric suffixes.
That�s not a sentence. Is it a headline?
Jehovah is an acceptable pronunciation of the divine name. It preserves the essential elements of the Tetragrammaton (hwhy). That the most widely known form in English, which is a form linguistically widespread because of Christendom�s missionary-translators of the Bible and the modern use by Jehovah�s Witnesses, is three syllables�whereas most authorities say that the original pronunciation in Hebrew was two syllables (Yahweh)�is of no moment.
I mostly agree with this, as I also write in my original response to Stafford�s article.
After all, we think nothing of our taking the Greek trisyllable Iesous, pronounced ee-aye-soos, with emphasis on the final syllable)
Uh, how many syllables you say, Stafford?
and writing the English, shortened form of it, namely, the two-syllable "Jesus." In fact, the Hebrew language does this with the spelling of God�s name so that some of its occurrences are as a hypocoristic (shortened) form, YH (or JH), in the extant manuscripts. In some of the Hebrew personal names that incorporate a theophoric (divine name-bearing) suffix, we find three different treatments of such names. First, there is the case where a theophoric suffix (for example, -yah [Hebrew YH] or -yahu [Hebrew YHW], instead of the full spelling Jehovah or Yahweh [Hebrew YHWH], of course,) was sometimes entirely dropped. Thus, Berekhyahu could and did become truncated to Berekh (= the Anglicized Baruch). We know this from a comparison of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, which preserve the shortened form as reflected in our English versions� spelling of the name "Baruch," with seventh-century BCE �seals and seal impressions of six Biblical [Judahite] personages recovered.�
Quite interesting, and totally irrelevant.
Then we have the second and third treatments of names that incorporate the theophoric element so that the theophoric element could appear either as -yahu or as -yah.
We transliterate (not to be confused with Anglicizing a Hebrew spelling) both the second and third treatments of the theophoric suffix as -iah.
The third-mentioned treatment (-yah) was a very common practice so that, for example, a
man�s given name could be Neriyahu, but he would commonly hear his name as Neriah. In fact, such is exactly the case with the historical Neriyahu, for apparently he was better known as Neriah. We know this fact from a comparison of the
spelling "Neriyahu" (the patronymic of Baruch/Berekh), which occurs in a bulla (a blisterlike lump of clay used to bind shut a scroll, usually impressed with a scribe�s seal) dating from the time of Jeremiah�s and his scribe Baruch�s ministries,
with what we see in the extant Hebrew manuscripts, wherein we see the spelling "Neriah." The spelling "Neriah" shows us either that Jeremiah introduced the less formal expression "Berekh ben Neriah" into the Hebrew Scriptures, or that
Hebrew scribes early on so introduced these particular hypocoristics, for they are not the formal names that we see in "Berekhyahu ben Neriyahu," an identification which appears on the aforementioned, formal bulla. . . .
Again interesting, but where is the point here? Have you omitted the conclusion where he jumps (leaps) from the above trivia to the conclusion that Yahweh is wrong and Jehovah correct, or is this just a lot of fine words and scholarly-sounding phrases that is included to impress the masses?
Regarding the use of Jehovah for hwhy
Com�on, Stafford. English writes from left to right. Transcribing letters to European without reversing order is plain silly. Do you do it just to impress your readers: "see I know that Hebrew writes right to left"?
Janey, is this represented correctly, or did you replace the Hebrew tetragrammon with "hwhy"?
(YHWH), Francis Denio states:
"Unquestionably it is an erroneous form.
Exactly. One of Stafford�s own sources directly contradicts his conclusion. And this is all I have ever claimed. Denio even says "unquestionably", and that is what I also said. There is no serious argument about this.
To what Denio otherwise states, I have little objection to (except as noted).
Other forms equally erroneous are unchallenged. Isaiah and Jeremiah, to name no others, would, if correctly printed, be as much barbarisms as Yahweh. . . . Jehovah misrepresents Yahweh no more than Jeremiah misrepresents Yirmeyahu.
Two comments:
1) Denio here emphatically states that Yahweh is the correct form (in English letters, of course). So much for Stafford�s references. Did you at all read this, Janey?
2) There is a valid objection to Denio�s argument here. It has always, perhaps except in our times, been considered appropriate to translate names. The writer of the Greek NT had no problems using a Greek form, Iesous, to represent the original Hebrew Jeshua (or Joshua). But the form "Jehovah" did not originate in such a translation. It did, as I explained earlier, originate in a total misunderstanding, a misreading of the original Hebrew mss. This is certainly a relevant difference, and means you cannot compare the changes done to Yirmeyahu to the changes done to Yahweh.
The settled connotations of Isaiah and Jeremiah forbid questioning their right. Usage has given them the connotations proper for designating the personalities which these words represent. Much the same is true of Jehovah. It is not a barbarism. It has already many of the connotations needed for the proper name of the covenant God of Israel. There is no other word which can faintly compare with it. For centuries it has been gathering these connotations. No other word approaches this name in the fulness [sic] of associations required. The use of any other word falls so far short of the proper ideas that it is a serious blemish in a translation.
As I have already noted, I do not at all disagree with this.
Thus, according to Denio "Jehovah misrepresents Yahweh no more than Jeremiah misrepresents Yirmeyahu." Does this mean that "Jeremiah" is not actually a "biblical term," as Rhodes would have it? Quite the contrary. The two terms "Jehovah" and "Jeremiah" represent, in English, the actual Hebrew words written long ago.
Despite my objection to Denio�s argument summarized above, I mostly agree with this. Rhodes� argument is nonsensical. And I wrote this in my original reply to Stafford�s article.
Of course, there is a danger for a JW to appeal to popular opinion and the position a name has in a people�s culture. If you take the argument one step further, it means the proper form for a Christian would indeed be Lord, which was the form the NT writers themselves chose when they quoted from the Hebrew Holy Scriptures.
More recently George Buchanan has written in support of a trisyllable form of the divine name in Hebrew. In a recent article, he argues against the pronunciation "Yahweh," stating: "Anyone who cares to check the concordances will find that there is no name in the entire Scriptures that includes the Tetragrammaton and also omits the vowel that is left out in the two-syllable pronunciation [=Yahweh] Rainey upholds. . . . When the Tetragrammaton was pronounced in one syllable it was �Yah� or �Yo.� When it was pronounced in three syllables it would have been �Yahowah� or �Yahoowah.�
Note the change in form here. Buchanan, who is the only cited source that actually agrees with Stafford, says "would have been." Now, this grammatical construct hides the fact that there is not a shred of evidence this form even existed. It is hypothetical. It is not documented anywhere. With respect, Buchanan doesn�t do serious work here. He does wishful thinking for reasons that becomes very obvious later in his text.
If it was ever abbreviated to two syllables it would have been �Yaho,� but even this spelling may have been pronounced with three syllables, including the final aspirant, because Hebrew had no vowel points in Biblical times."
Operative words: "may have". Again, no evidence and pure speculation.
Several years earlier Buchanan wrote a similar, more detailed defense of the original, trisyllable form. In this article he points out that there was only one group in antiquity to pronounce the divine name similar to the popular form, "Yahweh." And this only because Theodoret (fifth-century CE Antiochene theologian) claimed that the Samaritans pronounced the divine name as Iabe.
Since this group actually existed at the time, and had an unbroken history of Yahweh worship back into the time when the Jews also knew the name, and this very far from Theodoret�s own home place, this is a very strong argument not easily brushed aside.
But, "all other examples [from antiquity] maintain the middle vowel."
What "other examples"? The very selective quoting from Stafford here leaves me somewhat suspicious.
Buchanan also points out that "the name �Yahweh� does not even sound Semitic," and he produces examples from Exodus 15 with "Yahweh" and "Yahowah" in the same sentences. Those with "Yahowah" sound "smooth and poetic," while those with "Yahweh" "sound rough and unrythmical."
I
find this "argument" quite comical. Obviously Buchanan grew up with the KJV in English, and is very fond of it. He should know bette