[B-Greek] YHWH into Greek

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Tue Dec 6 11:10:19 EST 2005


Dear Gene,

The words from Buchanan that you quote seem to be geniune, since they accord 
with his article. The words regarding Samaritan custom that you quote may be 
correct, but is is difficult to know. If Samaritan YABE, which some peoples 
belive is the pronunciation of YHWH, comes from a word different from YHWH, 
we may have a parallel in the Syriac Peshitta. The word used in the known 
manuscripts of that version, where we in the Hebrew text find YHWH, is 
MARYA. Some persons believe that the -YA element is taken from YAH, the 
Hebrew abbreviation for YHWH. But evidently it is nothing but the Syriac 
emphatic state of the noun (corresponding to the Greek article), which is 
found at the end of the noun.

We must conclude that we know very little about the background of the 
different writings of YHWH by early Greek writers.

Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of oslo



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene Gardner" <g_gardner1234 at yahoo.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 1:07 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] YHWH into Greek


                     Rolf stated:


An interesting discussion is found in G. W. Buchanan, "Some Unfinished 
Business with the Dead Sea Scrolls" Revue de Qumran 1988, 13:49-52.


 Rolf,

  Thank you for your detailed explanations as well as putting forth your 
opinions and theories. It is greatly appreciated. I found the quote below on 
the internet from the author that you cited. Could you verify its accuracy?


  "The original form of the divine name was almost certainly three 
syllables, NOT two. The accumulated data points heavily in the direction of 
a "three" syllable word."
  George W. Buchanan,
"Some Unfinished Business With the Dead Sea Scrolls,"
RevQ 13.49-52 (1988), 416
 I also found this quote on the internet from a Samaratin site, that stated 
that the Greek IaBe was not an accurate rendering of the Divine Name:

                     Originally the Samaritans or Shamerim (keepers, as they 
call themselves)were divided into two groups, Dosithean and Sabbuai. The 
Sabbuai later became known as the Kushaniyya, the modern day Samaritans are 
from this group. The Kushaniyya refused to pronounce the divine name and 
supplanted it with the term Shema (Aramaic for "The Name"). The Dositheans 
on the other hand used the divine name, but as they no longer exist it 
cannot be known how they pronounced the divine name. Many scholars claim 
that the pronunciation of the Divine Name as "Yahweh" is accurate due to 
Samaritan inscriptions written in Greek which write the Divine Name as 
"Yabe" The Samaritans in most instances pronounce beth, veth, waw, pe and fe 
as a "b". But what these scholars fell to realize is that the Samaritans 
like the Rabbinates subsituted a the Name with another word when they came 
across the Name written in the Torah. The Samaritans unlike the Rabbinates 
did not read Adhonai when they came
 accross the Divine Name, but "yabe" or innon-Samaritan pronunciation "yafe" 
(Beautiful). Therefore the pronunciation of the divine name as Yahweh is 
inaccurate based upon the Samaritan/Kushaniyya desire 'not' to pronounce the 
divine name. Thus, not even the Samaritans to our knowledge remained as one 
group, who were in complete agreement with one another.


 http://shomron0.tripod.com/2004/feb12.html


 (bottom of page)

 Just wondering if you had any thoughts pertaining to the above quote?

 Thanks,

 Gene Gardner






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