[B-Greek] Dating Beta Fricativization

Vadim Cherny VadimCherny at mail.ru
Tue Sep 13 06:54:28 EDT 2005


You are right, of course, that waw in words is normally transliterated ou. Now, we have Theodoret's Iabe, where waw is beta. One obvious reason for that could be that by Theodoret's time (fifth century), beta was fricativized, and while waw was not earlier transliterated with beta, by Theodoret's time it was reasonably transliterated with veta.To assess the validity of that argument, we have to establish that by the fifth century beta was fricativized. If it was fricativized, then Iabe (Iave) could represent iah.we or ih.we.If, however, beta was not fricativized by the fifth century (and so far I had seen no firm evidence of fricativization), then the only reason for Theodoret's choice of beta is that he was transliterating not a word, but initialism, and so each letter separately.A choice of beta for stand-alone waw is reasonable; taken alone, w is closer to v/b than to ou. It is in open stressed syllables that waw is surely close to ou.Indeed, iah.we is at any rate unlikely to be transliterated with veta, and thus my suggestion that Iabe is spelling, is plausible. But the suggestion would hold even firmer if beta was not fricativized.btw, about Iabe as spelling, cf. B.Sanh 101a: "Abba Saul said [about Samaritans]: Also he [blasphems] who pronounces the divine name as it is spelt." Theodoret attribites Iabe pronunciation to Samaritans.Vadim Cherny > I seem to have missed something here, now that BETA 'b' is "surely" the way to transcribe Hebrew vav/wau. The LXX, begun at a time when everyone agrees that Greek BETA was 'b', tells us what? DAUEID//DAUID. This LXX DAUEID is carried over in NT as DAUEID/DAUID in the old uncials [often we get nomina sacra "DAD" in the continuing tradition]. Later, DABEID also enters the tradition. This, of course, lines up with my reading of the phonetics and with expected phenomena of historical spellings, but contradicts the thesis that "Stand-alone waw is surely beta, not ou." (And Josephus mentions a certain OUESPASIANOS, also OUALERIOS, OUAROS, K.T.L., showing a good etymological understanding of Greek OU= Latin V/W, though writing at a time when we start getting our VETA's, like New Testament p46 SILBANOU in the next century.)  What I am starting to see between the lines is that this is a matter where you want to interpret Theodoret's IABE as not being [yave//yawe] or related to actual sound. You can surely claim that IABE is a conjecture, only based on written evidence "YHWH", as you have done. A fricative VETA is irrelevant to your concern.  ERRWSORandall BUth>> I offer another explanation, that Theodoret transliterated written YHWH (Y->I)(H->A)(W->B)(final H->E), not recorded actual pronunciation. Stand-alone waw is surely beta, not ou.


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