Talk:Tetragrammaton/Archive 5

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Independent Observation

Why are they calling Proto-Aramaic, as Proto-Hebrew? Which language does the first line look like? Please, compare it to line 2 or 3. I don't want to be the only one who can recognize the difference between proto i aramaic I & hebrew L. - Additionally the sample second script is hand writing of Aramaic verse an etched Aramaic example. How desperate are they to make them look different? 4WhatMakesSense (talk) 22:48, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The caption of the top image comparing the three written versions of the name says the first is Paleo-Hebrew and the second one old Aramaic. However, the first looks like Phoenician and the second looks like Paleo-Hebrew. I only learned about these things yesterday, but see, for example, [Alphabet]. Can anyone else more knowledgeable than me confirm which is correct? Honestrosewater (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Septuagint section

If someone understands the section on the Septuagint and/or has access to the sources referred to in it, would they please clarify the section, particularly the last paragraph, and more particularly still the last sentence? Esoglou (talk) 15:22, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Yhwh pronounciation

According to exodus 6 , 2&3 , this tetragramatn was revealed for the first time , never before ! Yahweh him self is saying it clearely . Who is then te Yahweh in genesis and where ever before ? Are they two different gods with the same name ? The answer : yhwh is written in a semitic Waw , the WaW is equal to two times W , waw , then must be translated YAHWWEH . Pronounced YAHOOWEH . This word is the tird tense of semitic EHYEH , and means : that one , god of their ancestors ... As reporter, Moses could not report saying : Ehyeh , i am, he must say : that one , yahooweh In that dictation given to Moses . I think it is an evidence in the text . Badly translated Yahweh it was considered as a name . It is not a religious problem but a lecture one . Elias Bouez from Lebanon .--85.169.97.18 (talk) 09:06, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Read WP:OR. Esoglou (talk) 11:47, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Meaning

Have added short stub on meaning, with one common understanding, both referenced from Christian writers, other editors may help develop this. Cpsoper (talk) 00:03, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

'national god of Israel' vs 'god of israel' and is this a Christian article?

Christian Bibles are not written in Hebrew. This article does not need to reflect neutrality for Christians, as the Tetragrammaton is the name in Hebrew of the god of Israel, it is not a Christian concept. Christianity may have attached some significance to this Israelite, Jewish, and Samaritan concept, but that does not mean it is a Christian one. It is distinctly Hebraic in origin and use. For that matter, the 'national god of Israel' is unacceptable for Christians as well, due to the fact it is never mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament. Even if the article should reflect neutrality for Christians, which it clearly should not, just like an article on Paul of Tarsus should not reflect neutrality for Muslims, it is not an article about northwestern Canaanite deities, which is where the concept of a supposed 'national god of Israel' originates, from speculations by secular scholars, and not from the text of the Tanakh, which presents their god as universal not national. See Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, et cetera. I also refer you to the talk pages of Moses and the Israelites for further discussion.--Newmancbn (talk) 14:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

There are no Christian articles here, just as there are no Atheist articles, Buddhist articles, Jewish articles, Muslim articles, or Wiccan articles. Wikipedia is neutral to all worldviews, which should be no threat to any person or religion seeking truth.

Also, I just saw a news story indicating that Pope Francis is still alive, but have yet to see anything indicating that Jesus has returned, so please do not pretend you speak for all Christians. The neutrality, verifiability, and other policies here are a boon to Christianity, not a bane. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

On the related question of capitalisation, I disagree with Editor2020 that a small 'g' is the only proper description of Israel's national Deity: it is the explicit claim of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that the same God is exclusively singular and universal. If one insists on small letters since the description is a merely generic one, should not the same misguided rigour apply to the phrase 'God, according to Islam, is a universal God' in the Tawhid page? I propose a reversion to the capitalised form. Cpsoper (talk) 14:32, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I did not say that, only that the article is National god. Editor2020, Talk 21:25, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I can see a difference between God being a god or even a national god but still God. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, "God" is the "national god" of the Israelites. Editor2020, Talk

I agree. Dougweller (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

So for this rule to be consistent, the tawhid page for example should read for the generic use 'God, according to Islam, is a universal god' - correct? If not please explain why? I appreciate why the x link here required a small 'g', but national God, or if you prefer National God, seems appropriate in this context as does the original phrasing on the tawhid page 'God, according to Islam, is a universal God' and the alternative needlessly irreverent. Cpsoper (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

---

Newmancbn -- I don't follow all your rhetoric, but during much of the 1000 B.C - 500 B.C. period, YHWH was the tribal or national god of the Israelites, just as Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Qaws the god of the Edomites, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 18:13, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Difference being that half the world's population don't credit the god and prophets of Moab, Edom and Ammon with being true witnesses. Jews, Christians, Muslims and many others now do honour Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael and Jacob, Moses and Elijah with being unique messengers of the Universal Deity. Does not making equivalence between such local idols and Deity violate WP:UNDUE? Cpsoper (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

who uses full vocalized term, when

For those interested in adding content about how christians use the vocalized term, especially liturgically, I would suggest adding high quality (stated in NPOV, and well sourced from secondary sources) content to the body of the article about this, and only after that is done, reviewing the article overall to see if it rises to the level of being included in the lead. It is an interesting topic. Jytdog (talk) 09:43, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

yet MORE edit warrning in the lead, for pete's sake

per WP:LEAD, NOTHING SHOULD BE IN THE LEAD THAT IS NOT DISCUSSED IN THE BODY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????? first this riduculous stuff about liturgical use, and now this "jehovah" junk. Please, please, PLEASE stop edit warring over the lead. PUT CONTENT INTO THE BODY OF THE ARTICLE AND ONLY IF IT RISES TO IMPORTANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE ARTICLE SHOULD IT GO INTO THE LEAD, WITH APPROPRIATE WP:WEIGHT.

This is in regard to this and this. the source that Esoglou is bringing, this article, has the briefest discussion - far from comprenhensive or even thoughtful - about the history of "jehovah" - it is essentially an opinion piece advocating for the use of "yah" for the name of God - this is really a crap source for an article on the tetragrammaton about which oceans of ink have been spilt. Why would you edit war to include a crap source IN THE LEAD of this article? Just stop. Please stop edit warring. The content does not address what I said above. And please stop inserting content into the lead of the article that is not in the body of the article, which was my whole point above. And the source is crappy and the content you are introducing is wrong, anyway. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC) (edited to remove angry text and replace with simple statement of the issue Jytdog (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC))

My edits have been attempts to respond to your objections, not edit-warring reverts. Please explain why you think the information published in the Jewish Bible Quarterly about how Christian Bible translations dealt with the tetragrammaton is inaccurate. You don't need an elaborate discussion about something so obvious. What Christian Bible translation before Tyndale's do you imagine represented the tetragrammaton by "Jehovah"?

Take your time in giving your response. I won't see it until some time tomorrow. Esoglou (talk) 20:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• To answer your question, please read our article on Jehovah.
• Elaborating -- Your edit had nothing to do with what I wrote above, and I am sorry you misunderstood it. I was speaking to the edit warriors who were fussing over, and even padding, the discussion of liturgical use in the lead. I asked them to actually develop something in the body and then see what made sense to say in the lead. Your edits had nothing to do with that.
• You are ignoring the key point -- you too were trying to put information ONLY in the lead, without adding it to the body first.
• The content you were trying to insert doesn't match the content that is already in the body of the article about "Jehovah"
• I will say to you, Esoglou if you really care about the history of "Jehovah" please update the body of the article - or better yet, update the main Jehovah article, of which the discussion in this article should just be a summary per WP:SUMMARY -- and then summarize the Jehovah section that is already in the body, in the lead of this article, like we are supposed to per WP:LEAD. There is no need to introduce new sources for that, much less brand new matter that is not already in the body.
• I will add, again, that this article from JBQ is not about the tetragrammaton, it is a piece advocating that we should call God "yah". It discusses the tetragrammaton briefly, in a paragraph or two, on the first 2 pages. It does not say that "Jehovah" first appears in Tyndale. The author seems to be talking about English translations and it is pretty clear that Tyndale started popularizing Jehovah, but again if you read our article on Jehovah you will say that its use is far far older than that. But again, the source is not about YHWH. Why reach for such a poor, mostly off-target source when there are so many good ones (and in this article and the main Jehovah one, right at hand)? Real question! Jytdog (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I should wait somewhat longer, but I am making bold to respond after a pause of only about 24 hours. At least in intention, I was not writing about "Jehovah", but about the use of Κύριος, Dominus, ܡܳܪܝܳܐ, Lord, in Christian translations to represent the tetragrammaton. If I had known that the mention of "Jehovah" (rather than "Yahweh" or, for that matter, "l'Éternel" and the like) as the earliest transliteration form used in place of Κύριος, Dominus, etc., would cause such offence, I would not have included it. I think your judgement on what the recent short Durousseau study said about Christian Bible translations is too harsh. I will cite in the body of the article what he said of the practice followed for so many centuries in Christian Bible translations, so that you can correct it by citing some more authoritative source. There too I am endeavouring to take account of your observations, not simply reinserting a previous text of mine, and for that reason I make no mention of any example whatever of a transliteration of the tetragrammaton. Esoglou (talk) 19:42, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you will now permit deletion from the lead of the mention of Christian liturgical use, where I think it is out of place but where you for some reason have insisted on reinserting it. Esoglou (talk) 11:31, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Esoglou about this edit, you have again inserted content into the lead that is not found in the body. Put things in the body FIRST, with sources, and then add them to lead, IF they are important enough in the context of the whole article. This is Wikipedia 101 stuff per WP:LEAD - please follow it. I took the content you added to the lead and moved it to the body to show you what needs to be done, and added a citation needed tag in in this dif. Jytdog (talk) 15:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it best to withdraw for at least another 24 hours, indeed longer. For some reason you think it important to mention Catholic liturgical practice in the lead – I don't – but object to the mention of Orthodox liturgical practice that I added to the lead, thinking it already sufficiently sourced in the section of the body on Christian translations (from which you have now removed it) and being prepared to add, if it were tagged for more. The Orthodox liturgy, which, with all due respect to the Catholic liturgy, is more important for illustrating Christian practice over the centuries than a very recent directive from the Vatican, clearly does not admit terms such as Ιεχοβά or Γιαχβέ or anything else but Κύριος. But before I deal with the problem of our differing points of view, it is best to interpose a cooling down period. I don't want to imitate the yet MORE edit warring in the lead. Esoglou (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

this is really strange. instead of actually dealing with what i wrote, you are doing all this backing off and personalizing this. there was nothing in the body about orthodox liturgical practice. Now there is content there - it just needs a source. This is not difficult and i am not trying to trick you or anything -- i am telling you a very straightforward thing. very. simple. there is no need to cool off - I did the first step for you (adding the content to the body) - now all you need to do is find a source for it. it is not hard, really. Jytdog (talk) 17:43, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I have taken the pause that I felt it better to grant myself. I am sorry that I gave Jytdog the impression of backing off (whatever that meant) and personalizing. I am sorry also for having imagined (wrongly, of course) that there was a touch of personalizing in this, in the accusations of edit-warring, and in the response to my querying the fittingness of putting in the lead an isolated mention of Catholic liturgical practice. I think it more conducive to peace and quiet to back off from any attempt to insert in the lead a balancing mention of what I might consider to be sufficiently illustrated in the body of the article under "Christian translations". Esoglou (talk) 19:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

NICE bunch of content today! That was great. I hope you were OK that I moved some of it. Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

He will continue to be

I seem to remember translations of the third person singular imperfect of he-vav-he being either "he will be" or "he will continue to be".

Would need a source to cite grammar.

Gregkaye ✍♪ 08:34, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

already discussed in the etymology section. Jytdog (talk) 16:02, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Need to cite better sources than Strong's Concordance or the New World Translation

In the conflicting edits regarding the possible morphological meaning(s) of YHWH, we should strive for more authoritative and deeper sources than a concordance and the notes in a translation. Wikipedia requires citing publications on a matter like this, we should dig a little deeper.Pete unseth (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you have prejudice to New World Translation and Jehovah's Witnesses. NWT is a good publication. It's not sufficient reason to delete JW's assertion. The current article is biased toward Catholic and Jewish views to tetragrammaton. It is POV.1.115.194.173 (talk)

New World Translation is only good to explain what JW doctrine is, not necessarily what academic understanding of history is. Same goes for Strong's, even if its sectarian views are for a different sect. Also, assume good faith from other editors. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

But if you think JW doctorine is a different sect, I think that no one can delete it's view. If you delete it, I and many JWs think this article is biased to Catholic and Jewish views and it is POV. 1.115.197.164 (talk) 03:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Could you please provide some examples of this supposed Catholic and Jewish bias? I do think that JW doctrine could be included -- but only if clearly labelled as JW doctrine and placed in the section "Usage in religious traditions." If there are difference between what history according to secular academia and JE doctrine, that's probably a sign of historical revisionism on the part of JWs, which is their problem, not ours. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:30, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

As I understand Pete unseth's criticism of Strong, Brown–Driver–Briggs etc., the point is that, though more mainstream than NWT, the English equivalents they give for Hebrew words are derived from KJV. I am unsure what Pete means by digging a little deeper for wikicitable sources. Would Klein do for the meaning of היה? After all, it is independent of any English Bible translation. The meaning it gives for היה is: "to be, exist, happen, become" and, for the Piel form, "he caused (something) to become, he made". For the parallel form הוה (clearly closer to יהוה), it gives "to be" as the meaning, with "became" only for the Niph. form.

I doubt the appropriateness of selecting just two English Bible translations, New World and Emphasized, as (the) authoritative indications of the meaning of אהיה אשׁר אהיה in Ex 3:14. Esoglou (talk) 09:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

היה and הוה are the same verb, with different orthography. Typically the form with the Vav is used in the present tense. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Neither User:Pete unseth nor Chatul have indicated what precisely they would want to give as proper sourcing for:

The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be", "exist", "become",[9][10] or "come to pass".[1][11] (in the lead); and

Many scholars propose that the name "YHWH" is a verb form derived from the biblical Hebrew triconsonantal root היה (h-y-h), which means "to be", "become", "come to pass". It has הוה (h-w-h) as a variant form ...

To provoke suggestions, it may be necessary to make edits to those passages. Esoglou (talk) 07:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

---

Some general points --
1) Strong's Concordance is an originally 19th-century publication which provides a certain minimal degree of access to Biblical Hebrew and Greek for English-speakers who are (for whatever reason) unable or unwilling to actually put in the time it takes to actually learn about the ancient Hebrew or Greek languages. It is not considered an authoritative source among 21st-century Biblical scholars.
2)The New World Translation has some rather controversial aspects which are not supported by the great majority of Biblical scholars, such as the translation of John 1:1, or the decision to translate κυριος in the ancient Greek New Testament as "Jehovah"[sic].
3) Triliteral roots היה and הוה are not actually the "same" verb, but they're closely related verbs (slight variants which differ only in a semivowel). AnonMoos (talk) 17:41, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: Regardless of underlying theological reasons for the linguistic discussion taking shape here (read: how to read/pronounce THE Hebrew name accoriding ot JW, or according to other religious streams), I would just suggest that there is only one verb/root - הוה, to be. The past tense is היה; the present tense (which is not used/spelled but only implied) in the written/spoken language is הוה. This is a simplified summary of the issue, of course, since the detais would involve arcane grammatical interpretations that hinge on the much later Masoretic vowel notation of the verb and its conjugations. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as attested forms which are actually used as verbs in the text of the Hebrew Bible, היה is extremely common (occurring thousands of times), while הוה is quite rare (occurring a grand total of 6 times). Verb היה is not normally conjugated as a participle (with the possible exception of Exodus 9:3) because the pronouns הוא היא הם הן take the place of emphatic present copula (while unemphatic present copula can be zero)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:26, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

New info/table

I reverted this information from User:AbimaelLevid because I felt it needed to be discussed to even see if the inclusion is a good one, copy edited if it was decided to be, and whether or not the sources used are WP:RS. He has since reverted my edit, and added the explanation of "more refs", but I still believe it needs to be discussed, so instead of reverting again I am bringing it up here.

As for the sources, I don't believe that biblegateway.com meets the RS test, and am unsure of the archives.org. Thoughts? Vyselink (talk) 14:03, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

It may be possible to fix it, but I leave substantive judgement to those who have more expertise. I only say that it needs to be translated (from Polish?) to proper English. Esoglou (talk) 14:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

As far I can understand from studying the changes made, nothing that was already there in the article was taken out by this addition. Some dubious material (and to my view also rather non-critical) about the Book of Esther and the Qumran scrolls was added, including a Polish language table of Qumran references. That table would have to be properly translated and formatted, if it is decided that it does have to remain in the article, as Esoglou says. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:02, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Nothing was removed by the additions. It is the additions themselves that I am questioning, as I don't think the refs are RS. Vyselink (talk) 23:46, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Please, check the new references.--AbimaelLevid (talk) 21:40, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

BC/AD vs BCE/CE

This may have been talked about already, and I may have just missed it, but as an editor has recently changed all the dates to BC/AD from BCE/CE, I was wondering which should be used? I prefer BCE/CE myself, being less religiously inclined, but I could see BC/AD from a historical perspective. Are there any relevant WP guidelines? I didn't want to rvt as I was unsure. Vyselink (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

NVM, I just saw the previous discussion. Vyselink (talk) 23:14, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Edit war discussion

We have an IP-hopper edit warring to swap BCE and CE. There's been previous discussion (see above thread), and per WP:ERA, we'd need a new consensus to swap it back. Since the Tetragrammaton is at least (if not more) important to Judaism as it is to Christianity, the religiously neutral BCE/CE is preferable, so I don't see a new consensus forming. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:35, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Request for grammar clean up

In the following sentence, the phrase "where the verb" doesn't seem to make grammatical sense:

It is connected to the passage in Exodus 3:14 in which God gives his name as אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh), where the verb, translated most basically as "I am that I am", or "I shall be what I shall be", "I shall be what I am"[14] or "I will become what I choose to become",[9] " I Will Become whatsoever I please"

The phrase in question seems superfluous, but I lack the confidence to remove it. Could someone who understands these things (Hebrew etymology, English grammar) please check the sentence.TheseusX (talk) 22:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Since nobody did anything, and I like you didn't understand it, I added a tag in hopes somebody will fix it. __209.179.0.121 (talk) 21:58, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

English

GabbyMerger falsely claimed in this edit that Yahweh is not an English form. Yahweh is in fact the preferred form in English among scholars, and is found in standard English dictionaries.[1][2][3]--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:38, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

It would appear that the issue is with the term "form". Spoken, Yahweh is a (Hebrew) pronunciation of the Hebrew name יהוה, but, written, it is the transliterated English form (that is, the Hebrew יהוה transliterated into Latin letters - not to be confused with a translation or anglicisation). So it is both a Hebrew pronunciation and an English transliteration. In a sense, you're both right. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 01:21, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

pronunciation

The article currently says Yahweh is the pronunciation of the transliteration YHWH most widely accepted by Hebrew scholars. The YHVH transliteration is generally pronounced Yahuveh. This is misleading and no doubt incorrect. These are English spellings that use confusing English spelling habits to approximate the correct pronunciation but they are neither precise nor clear. We should definitely use both IPA and Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key so that readers know whether the letter h is to be pronounced or a silent indicator of how to pronounce the preceding vowels. And we need to state clearly whether the vowel e is to be pronounced as a diphthong as English native speakers unknowingly do or as a single vowel as in IPA. We cannot only use IPA because most native English speakers don't understand it and would for example interpret j to mean the sound at the beginning of "jet".

Here is a good source for pronunciation that also explains until when the name was said and why the tradition of not saying it arose. --Espoo (talk) 11:48, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Apparently you're not familiar with the science of transliteration. A transliteration is an "approximation of the correct pronunciation" - that's precisely its function. You are correct that the linguistic science of determining the pronunciation of ancient sacred names that were intentionally unspoken for thousands of years is "neither precise nor clear", but this is why there is not a consensus among Hebrew scholars on the accuracy of said transliterations, and why this article references a primary and alternate transliteration/pronunciation. Wikipedia is a summary of references, not a linguistic research laboratory. I think that we should leave these conclusions to scholars and reference that which is widely accepted. It is also on this basis that I have repaced the links you removed. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 01:35, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Tetragammaton redirects here? (gam. Not gRam)

it may also mean Tetragammadion.

192.116.90.206 (talk) 12:45, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Tetragammaton is redirected here as a common typographical error, and is clearly supported by a Google search for tetragammaton, with no precedence for the unrelated tetragammadion. No results are returned for the two terms tetragammaton and tetragammadion together, suggesting there is no connection at all between the two terms.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:25, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Hatnote

I'd like to suggest that a less confrontational hatnote than the current "historic Iron Age deity" be used on this article. I would recommend reverting to the previous (18 September) "discussion of the deity". Tevildo (talk) 16:54, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Why does the Tetragrammaton exists?

Shouldn't there be a quick note in the lede about why the Tetragrammaton exists? As I recall from Sunday School back in covered wagon days, the ancient Hebrews took the Commandment against using God's name in vain very seriously, and therefore refused to write it in the text. And since they couldn't write the actual name, they abbreviated it. Is that not the case and shouldn't that be in the lede? __209.179.0.121 (talk) 22:05, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Not quite. Hebrew was written without vowel-signs, so not only the name of God but all words were written with consonants only, and also without any separation between words. If we did this with English it would make reading very difficult ("THBYKCKDTHBLL" for "the boy kicked the ball"). Ancient Hebrew, however, is much more predictable, and it's quite easy to fill in the correct vowels. Modern Hebrew does have vowel signs, but Arabic, which is closely related, still makes do without - there are vowel sign in Arabic, but they're only used for teaching children to read. So, getting to your answer, during the monarchy the Israelites wrote everything without vowels, including God's name; later, when vowel-signs were introduced, they didn't write any for God's name, which was only pronounced aloud by one man, the High Priest, once a year, in the Holy of Holies - probably, as you say, out of respect for the commandment against taking the name in vain.PiCo (talk) 06:50, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I think you were meaning to say "...with consonants only, and also without sentence separation/punctuation." If you do mean there was originaly no separation between words, can you please provide a RS that says that specifically? I am not aware of any. Thanks, warshy ^(¥¥) 15:14, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation section is biased

This section doesn't seem to draw a distinction between biblical scholars / academics on the one hand and Jews on the other hand... saying that "Yayweh" is the "most widely accepted" pronunciation fails to distinguish between these very different audiences and groups. I propose that this be changed to state that it is more prevalent among academics and biblical researchers whereas Adonai or the substituion Hashem is the standard pronunciation among Jews. Thoughts? Michael Safyan ^(talk) 07:49, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

One thing is the actual pronunciation of the word, another is using different words as euphemisms when someone doesn't consider uttering the word appropriate. One thing is the "accepted pronunciation", the other is not a pronunciation of the word at all. LjL (talk) 18:25, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

YHWH is written and pronounced as Yahweh or Yehowah (Jehovah)

I tweaked... Yahweh is the pronunciation most widely accepted by Hebrew scholars, although 'Yehowah' is also used ('Jehovah'). 2601:589:4705:C7C0:1C96:2508:525A:2F69 (talk) 15:57, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

"Yahuwah" section

Perhaps someone with access to the cited work (I, sadly, do not) could clean up the "Yahuwah" section, which is in very broken English. I suppose the author is suggesting pronouncing YHWH with the vowels of Adonai, but I can't tell without reading the reference. Wayne Miller (talk) 00:18, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

It looks fishy; the vocalization of Adonai has a Cholam chaser, not a Shuruk. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:10, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Transgender?

In an op-ed piece in the New York times, Mark Sameth (a rabbi) suggests The Israelite priests would have read the letters in reverse as Hu/Hi — in other words, the hidden name of God was Hebrew for “He/She.” - I wonder if there is anybody else who supports this theory. --Austrian (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, sometimes YHWH was written in Hebrew letters in manuscripts which were otherwise in the Greek alphabet/language, in which case Hebrew יהוה written right-to-left was liable to be misunderstood as Greek ΠΙΠΙ written left-to-right. I don't think this has any relevance to Hebrew-language manuscripts, which were consistently right-to-left. AnonMoos (talk) 09:39, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Wow, stop the presses! That's some top-notch Scripture scholarship right there! How come nobody noticed that before in thousands of years? Tsk, I guess the Judeo-Christian world was asleep at the switch while God was out of the closet all along. Let's immediately add this to all relevant articles. Elizium23 (talk) 11:38, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Inconsistent Transliterations

This article needs HELP. Transliteration is very inconsistent:

יְהֹוָה is transliterated as "Yehovah" or "Yehowah" (as scholars and references say), but also as "Yahovah" and "Yahuveh."

יֱהֹוִה is "Yehovih" in references, but folks here list it as "Yahuvih"

יַהְוֶה is called "Yehweh" when it should be "Yahweh" (per Gesenius and Brown-Driver-Briggs)

This is no argument over the original pronunication but simple transliteration. Simple Shewa is not "A", Cholam is not "U", Kamatz is not "E" per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Hebrew. Yahnatan (talk) 12:38, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

First off, "Yehowah" and "Yehowih" are NOT transliterations of any Hebrew form found in the Bible, but are hybrid composites based on misunderstanding the conventions of Qere perpetuum. As it says in entry "Tetragrammaton" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2nd. edition) edited by F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone. (1978), p. 1354 (ISBN 0-19-211545-6), "the bastard word 'Jehovah' [was] obtained by fusing the vowels of the one word with the consonants of the other". (The superscript "o" dots are actually omitted in most of the best Biblical manuscripts anyway...)

Yahuveh and Yahuvih are even farther off, since they appear to emanate from small religious groups whose assertions about Biblical Hebrew are "fringe" with respect to scholarly consensus.

Don't know where "Yehweh" comes from, but the pointing יַהְוֶה is not found in any old Jewish source; it was created by Christians who took the 19th century scholarly reconstruction "Yahweh" and cast it back into Hebrew script... AnonMoos (talk) 10:29, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, Gesenius was German, so presumably his Yehveh and Waw would be equivalent to an Anglophone's Yeveh and Vav. There's also the question of which regional pronunciation was closest to Biblical Hebrew. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:40, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't really know what you're trying to say, but the pronunciation of the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet as a consonant during the Biblical period was as a semivowel, as discussed in section #"Waw" vs. "Vav" above (and elsewhere in the talk archives). AnonMoos (talk) 22:56, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

According to the Biblical text, e.g., Judges 12, there was no single "Biblical Hebrew". Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

There was a dialect continuum. However, that has nothing ascertainable to do with the pronunciation of the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet as a semivowel in Biblical times... AnonMoos (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Tetragrammaton

@Ieue: Hello Tetragrammaton, no links in the flow-text - see Wikipedia:Weblinks. Thanks --Serols (talk) 14:35, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@Serols: I'm a seasoned editor and it took me a few moments to realize what you were talking about here. To a new user, a phrase such as "no links in the flow-text" is meaningless. Please refrain from using Wikipedia jargon when speaking to other users who may not understand it. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 15:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Second Century Error?

Article claims: "The oldest complete Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) versions, from around the second century CE, consistently use Κυριος ("Lord"),[49] or Θεος ("God"),[50][51] where the Hebrew has YHWH, corresponding to substituting Adonai for YHWH in reading the original." [Emphasis mine.]

Surely that is an error. Did the editor mean fourth century? Is there a relatively complete LXX before Sinaiticus and Vaticanus? Does the citation really make that claim? I took the liberty of deleting the 2nd century claim as false. (PeacePeace (talk) 19:41, 23 July 2017 (UTC))

Christian Translations section

What is going on here? It's just random lines someone typed up. And they copy/pasted it twice. Can someone delete this?— Preceding unsigned comment added by EggsInMyPockets (talk • contribs) 15:20, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Please add some reference to time

Below is an article from Encyclopedia Judaica which has references the Tetragrammaton in relation to time. A timeframe can be established based on approximate dates of YHWH use (Lachish Letters, Ezra, Nehemiah), and when the Name became just 'Lord' (Septuagint). This clears up misconceptions that it was New Testament writers that were the first to stop using the Name.

YHWH

The personal name of the God of Israel is written in the Hebrew Bible with the four consonants YHWH and is referred to as the “Tetragrammaton.” At least until the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. this name was regularly pronounced with its proper vowels, as is clear from the *Lachish Letters, written shortly before that date. But at least by the third century B.C.E. the pronunciation of the name YHWH was avoided, and Adonai, “the Lord,” was substituted for it, as evidenced by the use of the Greek word Kyrios, “Lord,” for YHWH in the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was begun by Greek-speaking Jews in that century. Where the combined form ʾAdonai YHWH occurs in the Bible, this was read as ʾAdonai ʾElohim, “Lord God.” In the early Middle Ages, when the consonantal text of the Bible was supplied with vowel points to facilitate its correct traditional reading, the vowel points for ʾAdonai with one variation – a sheva with the initial yod of YHWH instead of the ḥataf-pataḥ under the aleph of ʾAdonai – were used for YHWH, thus producing the form YeHoWaH. When Christian scholars of Europe first began to study Hebrew, they did not understand what this really meant, and they introduced the hybrid name “Jehovah.” In order to avoid pronouncing even the sacred name ʾAdonai for YHWH, the custom was later introduced of saying simply in Hebrew ha-Shem (or Aramaic Shemāʾ, “the Name”) even in such an expression as “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of YHWH” (Ps. 118:26). The avoidance of pronouncing the name YHWH is generally ascribed to a sense of reverence. More precisely, it was caused by a misunderstanding of the Third Commandment (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11) as meaning “Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain,” whereas it really means either “You shall not swear falsely by the name of YHWH your God” (JPS) or more likely, “Do not speak the name of YHWH your god, to that which is false,” i.e., do not identify YHWH with any other god.

The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced “Yahweh.” This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names. In the opinion of many scholars, YHWH is a verbal form of the root hwh, which is an older variant of the root hyh “to be.” The vowel of the first syllable shows that the verb is used in the form of a future-present causative hiphʿil, and must therefore mean “He causes to be, He brings into existence.” The explanation of the name as given in Exodus 3:14, Eheyeh-Asher-Eheyeh, “I-Am-Who-IAm,” offers a folk etymology, common in biblical explanation of names, rather than a strictly scientific one. Like many other Hebrew names in the Bible, the name Yahweh is no doubt a shortened form of what was originally a longer name. It has been suggested that the original, full form of the name was something like Yahweh-Asher-Yihweh, “He brings into existence whatever exists”; or Yahweh Ẓevaʾot (I Sam. 1:3, 11), which really means “He brings the hosts [of heaven – or of Israel?] into existence.” “The Lord of Hosts,” the traditional translation of the latter name, is doubtful.

Thanks - dmonty (talk) 17:23, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

---

First off, the PDF file you linked to is 277 megabytes in size(!) and most likely a copyright violation. Also, the Lachish letters don't say anything directly about vowel pronunciation, since they're written in consonantal orthography. And the statement "The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost" is oversimplified at best. We have Greek alphabet approximations, but there's quite a bit of creative reconstruction involved in trying to use Greek to arrive at the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, due to fact that the ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek sound systems were very different. AnonMoos (talk) 03:46, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

---

Thanks for the critique of Encyclopedia Judaica found on archive.org. You are correct that ancient Hebrew and the Lachish letters do not have vowels. Also you are correct that Hebrew has a Yod, Hay, and Vav which Greek has no equivalent 1-to-1 letter sounds. I'm requesting assistance to add a reference to the approximate time when the name-change tradition started ~ "3rd century BCE". It seems proof of the time is based on the dating of the Septuagint. The Wikipedia article currently shows in a chart of the number of occurrences of the tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible. It shows that in the time of Jeremiah/Ezekiel(mid6th-mid5th century BCE - Babylonian captivity) the name was used most frequently "... then you shall know that I am 'Ha Shem' (YHWH)". A few generations after return from captivity and after Ezra/Zechariah/Malachi(mid5th-mid4th century BCE) a tradition appears: avoid saying the name. It seems to coincide with Hellenization of the world to Greek language including the Septuagint translation of the OT (3rd century BCE).

"We have Greek alphabet approximations, but there's quite a bit of creative reconstruction involved in trying to use Greek to arrive at the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, due to fact that the ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek sound systems were very different." - This should be included and explained in the "tetragrammaton" article that a LXX author would have difficulty transferring the sounds from Hebrew to Greek.

• There is no single Greek letter to express 'Yod' 'Y'.
• There is no single Greek letter to express 'Hey' 'H'.
• The closest Greek letter to express 'Vav' is 'Beta' 'B' which would be 'Bet' in Hebrew.
• Hence a Greek term 'tetragrammaton' arose expressing the inability to properly transliterate The Name from one language to the next.

dmonty (talk) 17:59, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Jews living in Judea did not change to speaking Greek as their mother-tongue, so the "Hellenization of the world" is rather irrelevant in that sense. If anything, they were still gradually shifting to Aramaic as their mother-tongue during those years. The Septuagint was translated in Egypt (where a population of Jews with Greek as their main language lived), and not in Judea or Galilee. And the Greek letter beta β was only a good transcription for Hebrew waw ו in the Byzantine period -- in the Hellenistic period, it would have been omicron-upsilon ου or nothing... AnonMoos (talk) 01:14, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

---

I always find it interesting that discussions regarding YHWH never seem to take the most obvious line - that it is two words blended. The first is YH, pronounced Ee-ya, and meaning "I am" (which is the pronouncement on Sinai). The second is HWH, meaning "life" (being the source of the name "Eve"). Making YHWH a compound word that means "I am Life". LeapUK (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

See WP:OR. Unless you have a modern, scholarly source to support your proposed etymology, it is original research, which is strictly forbidden here on Wikipedia. --Katolophyromai (talk) 18:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Etymology is dicey enough without using transliterations; the line that you suggest is not obvious, or even plausible, if you look at the Hebrew text; יהוה doesn't have the right consonant as its scond letter. I am in the present tense would be Ani Hoveh (אני הוה); in the imperfect tense it would be ehiyeh (אהיה). Life is חַיִּים and the Hebrew name for Eve is חָוָה; in both cases the initial consonant is Cheth, not Heh. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:00, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

LeapUK -- the vast majority of ordinary etymologies in older Semitic languages proceed by way of abstract consonantal roots. If you can't discuss linguistic processes in terms of consonantal roots, you're unlikely to have much of anything useful to contribute to Hebrew etymology. AnonMoos (talk) 10:42, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

References

References

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Consistency of dates

Some dates use the Christian forms BC/AD and others use the neutral forms BCE/CE. Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/5 calls for consistency. I suggest uniformly using the neutral forms, as that is more in accordance with WP:NPOV. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree completely. We should utterly dispense with BC/AD. There was a recent edit on this article to AD from CE, which I just reversed. Stephen Walch (talk) 20:03, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Introduction

I added to the end of the lead sentence of the introduction the following, and it was deleted:

which originally was the name of Yahweh, an Iron Age god of the Southern Levant.

This is widely known but I added this reference:

I added to the end of the next sentence the following, which also got deleted:

and literally may mean something like "he blows," referring to Yahweh, the ancient storm god.

I think the Yahweh origins of the tetragrammaton are important to understanding the term and should be included in the intro.--NYCJosh (talk) 15:22, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

"Yahwheh" is a theoretical reconstruction due to Wilhelm Gesenius 200 years ago; it's somewhat plausible, but by no means certain. Also, YHWH first emerges into view as the national God of the Israelites, just as Qaws was the national god of the Edomites, Chemosh was the national god of the Moabites etc. And etymologies with consonantal roots meaning "to be" seem most likely... AnonMoos (talk) 08:19, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I was probably the one who reverted you. Two reasons. First, YHWH might mean "he bloes", but this is far from certain and several other possible meanings have been put forward - the truth is nobody really knows, nor are we ever likely to know. Second, this belongs in the article Yahweh.PiCo (talk) 08:54, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Secret Pronunciation in Judaism

I once heard that there is a "correct" but secret pronunciation in Judaism which is passed down in the highest rabbi ranks (is there even such a thing?). Or was this and is lost? Maybe when the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed last time? I don't recall. But if I'm right, I think the article should mention this. --Alfe (talk) 12:45, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Supposedly the High Priest (not Rabbi) of the Jerusalem Temple pronounced it once a year inside the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. That would have been a secret of the Sadducee faction of Judaism, and the Sadducees didn't survive the various Jewish-Roman wars and rebellions of the early centuries A.D. in any organized form. The practice of Rabbinic Judaism for many centuries has been to pronounce it "Adonai"... AnonMoos (talk) 00:28, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Etymology of אֱלֹהֵינוּ (Eloheinu)

The word אֱלֹהֵינוּ (Eloheinu) is not derived from the Tetragrammaton, but is an inflected form of אֱלֹהִים (Elohim), the plural of אֱל֙וֹהַ֙‬ (Eloah). Other noun declensions appear, e.g., אֱלוֹהֵיכֶם (Eloheikem). Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:29, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Yahweh(70) or Yehowah(70/85)

I added the following... The spelling Yahweh has been preferred by learned Jews because of its English gematria. Yahweh=70=Y25+A1+H8+W23+E5+H8. However, the circle O is either the 15th letter or zero, thus Yehowah=70/85=Y25+E5+H8+O(15)+W23+A1+H8. Yehowah is 7 letters which is symbolicly preferred. 2601:580:107:43BF:9C64:5229:6695:B0AC (talk) 13:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

"In Wikipedia, verifiability means that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source" (WP:V). Bealtainemí (talk) 15:52, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

2601:580:107:43BF:9C64:5229:6695:B0AC -- first off, vowel diacritics have no influence whatsoever on traditional gematria, according to which יהוה sums to 26 regardless of pronunciation (though see File:Tetragrammaton-Tetractys.png for a way to make it sum to 72 by duplicating certain letters). Second, the reconstructed pronunciation "Yahweh" was devised by the Christian Wilhelm Gesenius, and traditional-minded Jews won't touch any pronunciation of יהוה not based on Adonai or Elohim... AnonMoos (talk) 04:15, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

יְהֹוָה is transliterated as Yehovah (Jehovah). יַהְוֶה is transliterated as Yahweh, as shown in article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton.

For more information about vowels in Tetragrammaton in Masoretic text (Leningrad Codex): https://jumalannimi.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/All_Tetragrammatons.pdf. Biblestudyhome (talk) 18:18, 13 January 2019 (UTC) Biblestudyhome

Biblestudyhome -- Unfortunately, you're completely wrong as far as traditional Jewish pronunciation of Biblical manuscripts goes. יְהֹוָה (in the best manuscripts, actually יְהוָה) is a "Q're perpetuum" indicating that the consonants YHWH are to be pronounced as "Adonai". יַהְוֶה is nothing, since it never appears in Hebrew Biblical manuscripts -- it's actually a transliteration of "Yahweh" (reconstructed by the Christian Wilhelm Gesenius in 1816) from the Latin alphabet into the Hebrew alphabet (not vice versa). The quasi-transliteration or pseudo-transliteration "Yehowah" is completely useless, since it's a "bastard word" (as The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church calls it) which jumbles together the consonants of the Tetragrammaton YHWH with the vowels of a completely different word Adonai. "Yehowah"[sic] simply does not exist in the Hebrew Bible according to the intentions of the Jewish scribes who originally wrote the manuscripts and the liturgical reciters who read aloud from the manuscripts during Jewish worship. The muddled form "Yehowah" (or in conventional Latin-language form Jehovah) was actually created many centuries later by Christians who misunderstood Jewish scribal conventions. Consult the images File:Qre-perpetuum.png and File:Tetragrammaton-related-Masoretic-vowel-points.png... -- AnonMoos (talk) 05:57, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

יְהֹוָה is not Qere Perpetuum because there found never a scribal note saying: "read it Adonai", not a single time in 6828 cases in manuscripts. All Qere Perpetuum cases always have scribal note at least somewhere. What comes to a form יַהְוֶה it never appears in manuscripts as you wrote. That means it have no biblical base at all. So every opinion concerning form "Yahweh" is only some kind of imagination. Biblestudyhome (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Obviously doesn't understand "perpetuum". A non-perpetuum q're is what has in the margin the consonants that go with the vowels added to the consonantal text to indicate what word is "read out" in place of what is "written". Bealtainemí (talk) 07:21, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I think that's non-sense you just wrote. It's so easy to say something like "יְהֹוָה is Qere perpetuum" etc. Prove it. Biblestudyhome (talk) 13:14, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Just read, for instance, Qere perpetuum. Bealtainemí (talk) 16:07, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

There is few problems in article Qere perpetuum. First of all, it says: "Often it is marked with the vowels יְהֹוָה‬, indicating that it is to be pronounced as אֲדֹנָי‬ Adonai". This is not true. יְהֹוָה (vowels sheva, holam, qamats) occurs only 50 times of 6828. Second of all, perpetuum "perpetual" means "read this word always such and such". Example: Jerusalem and 3rd person of fem. sing. And like article says: "in which the reader is expected to understand that a qere exists merely from seeing the vowel points of the qere in the consonantal letters of the ketiv". But Tetragrammaton makes exception of this kind of Qere Perpetuum. There are seven (7!) different vowel pointing in Tetragrammaton. (See: https://jumalannimi.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/All_Tetragrammatons.pdf) And third of all, pronounciation never be one and the same. Most of all it pronounced as adonay, but there is 306 cases where it supposed to be pronounced as elohim. In the end of article says: "Occasionally, the Tetragrammaton is marked יֱהֹוִה‬ (Deuteronomy 3:24, Psalms 73:28) to indicate a qere of אֱלֹהִים‬ Elohim, another Divine Name". Elohim is not a name. It is a generic term. For those reasons, I'm out. Whole article seems unreliable. 2001:14BB:430:6245:74D0:AAFC:9904:5144 (talk) 07:49, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

2001:14BB:430:6245:74D0:AAFC:9904:5144 -- As good as the Codex Leningradensis is (some people think the Aleppo Codex was even better), a Wikipedia article such as "Qere and Ketiv" is not and cannot be devoted to the particularities of that one manuscript only. Many manuscripts have יְהֹוָה almost exclusively, while in better manuscripts (such as Leningradensis) יְהוָה tends to prevail (as I indicated above). The manuscripts available to Christian Hebraists in the 16th century would have likely had a predominance of יְהֹוָה...

Secondly, the Tiberian pointing (niqqud) was intended for trained liturgical reciters of Hebrew. They wouldn't have had any difficulty in deciphering when YHWH was intended to be pronounced as Adonai, or the fewer occasions when it was intended to be pronounced as Elohim, and would have handled prefixed prepositions without any difficulty in either case. There's absolutely no valid evidence whatsoever that the Hebrew letters YHWH were pronounced as "Yehowah"[sic] in Jewish worship... AnonMoos (talk) 13:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Biblestudyhome -- there are certain works (such as "Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah" by Israel Yeivin) that you can consult (if you have the background to understand them). However, the Masoretes themselves were not big on explaining things. They wrote annotated Bible manuscripts, some highly technical listings of alternate or variant forms found in the Biblical text, which are extensions of, or appendices to, the Masorah Magna, and that's it... AnonMoos (talk) 13:41, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

3RR exemption

Reverting vandalism (pure gibberish). It's a troll who inserts nonsense in the article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Gertoux

@Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco: Gertoux was a graduate student (never got his PhD). This is as far as he got, academically speaking. So he is not reliable as a WP:RS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:41, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. With much respect for his person, I repeat what I said before. This argument, although it comes from G. Gertoux, is a direct textual quote by Vasileiadis, a Post-Doc Researcher in Biblical Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Pavlos D. Vasileiadis (2014). "Aspects of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton in Greek". Open Theology. 1: 56–88. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help). Of course, there are other references of high quality that quote his work, (Gertoux, Gerard (2002). The Name of God Y.eH.oW.aH which is pronounced as it is written I_Eh_oU_Ah: Its story. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America. ISBN 0761822046. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) and its French version, Gérard Gertoux (1999). Un historique du nom divin: un nom encens. L'Harmattan. ISBN 9782738480613.), but in this time I will appreciate that we only delimit the talk in why it is not good to add the previously deleted argument: "G. Gertoux (2002) proposed that the replacement of the Tetragrammaton by אדני was gradual between 300 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. and that Ιαω was an Aramaic substitute for the Tetragrammaton used from 200 B.C.E. until the middle of the second century C.E., at a time when the scribal practice of the nomina sacra appeared." This view is not only by Gertoux, but Vasileiadis attributes it to him. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 15:25, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Gertoux plagiarises Wikipedia for his articles, he's not reliable. As for the argument itself, try to find it stated by a mainstream source.PiCo (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

The discussion continues in Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Gerard Gertoux. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 20:46, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

There's no doubt whatsoever that he plagiarises Wikipedia - I wrote the passages he stole.PiCo (talk) 01:13, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Dear PiCo, I thank you on behalf of the world for your excellent work in wikipedia, but let me tell you that this time, You don't have to presented a convincing argument. I'm not talking about Gertoux, his studies, nor his academic degree. In fact, the sources presented in the other discussion (Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Gerard Gertoux) were not refuted by anyone of which we participate in it, because they are mainstream sources. And nobody gave any reason why they should not be added. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 17:21, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Of the passages that were mentioned in the other discussion, none is from the article titled tetragrammaton, nor the phrase that I wrote in the previous paragraph ("G. Gertoux (2002) proposed that the replacement of the Tetragrammaton by אדני was gradual between 300 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. and that Ιαω was an Aramaic substitute for the Tetragrammaton used from 200 B.C.E. until the middle of the second century C.E., at a time when the scribal practice of the nomina sacra appeared."). I will repeat it again, I am not talking about the Exodus, Pharaoh or Moses. It would be excellent if it is delimited to discuss that phrase. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 17:21, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

On the other hand, the fact that some authors mention Gertoux, and this information is included in an article, does not have a direct relationship with the plagiarism mentioned above. What relevance does it have that comes from Gertoux when it is in a reliable source? In fact, some historians mention characters that can not be determined what they say, or even, if they existed, but ... does that detract from the importance of the work? Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 17:21, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

And additionally, someone could try to prove which accounts or IP addresses Gertoux uses to write their arguments in the articles? Or even if that were so, how can it be said that this argument supported by a reliable source, and that it is widely accepted, should not be included, without looking like a personal attack? Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 17:21, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Please see WP:IRS, WP:RS as well as WP:SYNTH. Any interpretation or conclusion must be that of a relevant mainstream scholar or reliable source in the field. The selection of sources can also often be assessed via the use of tertiary sources like other encyclopedias. If Gertoux cannot be used as a source, his synthesis also cannot be used; the article should not reflect his conclusions even by citing the sources he does to reach that conclusion. I'm not sure if this answers your question; I don't see any personal attack (WP:PA) above... —PaleoNeonate – 01:19, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Let me congratulate you PaleoNeonate, for a good response and for your valuable time. Maybe I did not use the right words (in wikipedia terminology) when I wrote "personal attack". At no time have I considered that I am attacked. What I wanted to expose is that I expect a professional response, in which the sensitive data of the author Gertoux is not treated, or that simply deviates from the subject. It is interesting, but it is necessary that I have to look for how to refute myself. I was reading what you recommended, and let me expose you that I did not find that the author of a source must necessarily have a PhD, so I ask that is something necessarily to take into account. There is no author classification, which establishes grade for the works, and I repeat that the secondary source is a post-Doctor. I do not know if it is necessary, but another author who cites this work is François Bœspflug, since it is not related to the subject, but to the work. Previously You wrote: "Any interpretation or conclusion must be that of a relevant mainstream scholar or reliable source in the field.", but I will repeat that the arguments in the bold phrase reflect scholarly consensus. Also You wrote "The selection of sources can also often be assessed via the use of tertiary sources like other encyclopedias.", but a was reading that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources". In Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Gerard Gertoux One reads that opposition to someone for not having a PhD seems like a personal interpretation, rather than on wikipedia policies. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 15:20, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Let me put it another way. We wouldn't use a Masters thesis as a source. As for Geroux, it's taking him forever to get his PhD unless he hasn't updated his Academic.edu page, but as he's edited it this year that be odd. That mentions a book he wrote, but it's self-published through Lulu's Glasstree blog.lulu.com/2017/04/05/glasstree-the-evolution-of-academic-publishing/ (not in brackets as it is on the lacklist). In other words, he couldn't find a real academic publisher. As for the mention by PD Vasileiadis, Google Scholar shows just one citation[4] to it, which doesn't count as it's to another article he wrote, ie self-cited. So my conclusion remains the same, but with more evidence - not a reliable source by our criteria. Doug Weller talk 18:46, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank You Doug Weller. I really do not want to treat Gertoux personal or sensitive data. If what you wanted to tell that this book is his thesis for graduate as a Master, I was reading that is it not. If what you want to tell that a thesis from someone who has a Master's degree is not valid, I do not know if it can be supported (not all the existing universal scientific content comes from dissertations). In reality this work was qualified by its content, rather than by the author. Sorry to contradict You, according to You, "Google Scholar shows just one citation", there is not only one author who quotes Gertoux; in this talk I wrote two authors who cite, in Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Gerard Gertoux there are other two, and here there are other works who cite the same book: Vasileiadis, Pavlos (2013). "The pronunciation of the sacred Tetragrammaton: An overview of a nomen revelatus that became a nomen absconditus" (PDF). Judaica Ukrainica. 2: 5–20., Vasileiadis, Pavlos, “The Holy Tetragrammaton: A historical and philological approach of God’s name”, (Bulletin of Biblical Studies), 28 (Jul.–Dec. 2010), 82–107. and even an antithesis in some subjects (although what a pity!, it is self-published): Steven Ortlepp (2011). Pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton: A Historico-Linguistic Approach. Lulu.com. ISBN 1445272202. Even responding to PaleoNeonate an encyclopedia: Geoffrey William Bromiley; Erwin Fahlbusch (2008). The encyclopedia of Christianity. Vol. 5. Translated by Geoffrey William Bromiley. Wm. B. Eerdmans.. There are more citations, but I wonder if it changes into something if I present them. Thanks in advance for your valuable time. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 04:24, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't saying his work was a Masters thesis, just saying we don't use them. As for citations, I was just going by Google Scholar, which did only show one author. Perhaps it was just looking at journal articles. Vasileiadis of course only counts as one. I'm still not impressed. Doug Weller talk 16:07, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I respect the position of each editor, and do not try to change someone's mind, rather, present arguments that I considered would support my position, but apparently, only I am in this. I think I will lean on PiCo's suggestion. Thank you for your valuable time. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Yahweh or Yehovah?

Modern scholarship by Nehemia Gordon of Hebrew University - Jerusalem, has found definite proof of the pronunciation as "Yehovah". Also, although there is still reluctance in the Jewish culture to pronounce the name due to centuries of false conditioning, the modern Israeli will pronounce the name as "Yehovah". Nehemia Gordon speaks on YHWH Mkleberte (talk) 18:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, those claims ignore all the facts that are known about "Q're Perpetuum". Orthodox and/or traditional Jews pronounce written YHWH as "Adonai" or "Elohim" (never any form based on the consonants y-h-w-h), and are sometimes reluctant to even pronounce Adonai and Elohim outside of contexts of Bible recitation and prayer. Any Israeli who pronounces "Yehovah" got it directly or indirectly from Christians -- not from Jewish histoical knowledge. AnonMoos (talk) 05:38, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Greek New Testament

@Doug Weller: thanks for your help here. If I write references instead a citation needed tag, and I I write in different ways to avoid writing "although"... No more objection?. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 21:18, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Avoiding the word "although" would not resolve the problem if you still use a source as if it supports a view that it does not actually endorse. The point remains that the tetragrammaton does not appear in any New Testament manuscripts. Saying the tetragrammaton appears in Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament is irrelevant, as is saying that other people's names or other expressions such as hallelujah in the New Testament contain part of the tetragrammaton. The inclusion comes across as wanting to make a theological case for inclusion of proper names of God in the New Testament rather than simply reporting where the tetragrammaton is actually used.--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Jeffro77. Doug Weller talk 08:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Of course, YHWH does not appear in NT manuscritps, but that does not mean that the manuscripts do not provide evidence that has been used to support an original tetragrammaton. There are proponents of an original tetragram that do not necessarily "comes across as wanting to make a theological case for inclusion". Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 15:22, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

The article needs to be edited to remove the huge amount of irrelevant information still remaining. Modern reliable sources should also be found.PiCo (talk) 22:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Trying to make a case for inclusion of the tetragrammaton in the original unavailable New Testament manuscripts would seem to fall outside the scope of the article about the tetragrammaton itself. Discussion of the more specific (and speculative) suggestion that the tetragrammaton originally appears in the NT is addressed at Names and titles of God in the New Testament, though that article (which started as a POV content fork) probably also warrants some cleanup.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:38, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Edit war

The IP has added WP:OR twice, which is forbidden. He/she also removed verifiable information once. This has to stop. Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:30, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

She or he, who ought to study Help:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/1, made an unsuccessful attempt to remedy the lack of sourcing by inserting the unexplained "[6][8][9]". I have revised the text to show him or her how it can be done. Bealtainemí (talk) 09:06, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

capitalisation

Should the tetragrammaton be capitalised? (Tetragrammaton, not tetragrammaton) Jbjbjbjbjb (talk) 07:36, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed It functions as a proper noun, and therefore should indeed be capitalised (unless uncapitalised in quoted text).--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:45, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia has tetragrammaton with a small t here: http://www.doulosresources.org/styleguides/index.php?title=Guide_to_Capitalization

This is my preference, but it is a matter of style, and may vary by context.

Here you can see Michael Friedlaender explaining how the tetragrammaton has elements of both proper and common noun.

The Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah https://books.google.com/books?id=SwpkZB-OCiYC&pg=PA20

Another factor is the over-capitalization of pronouns related to deity. This can be seen as a related situation. StevenAvery.ny (talk) 12:00, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

"translated forms"

"read aloud translated forms such as Yahweh"

My understanding is that translated forms would be like "the Eternal One". Yehovah and Yahweh are transcriptions, attempts to bring the sound from one language to another, and they have no inherent English meaning as you would expect in translation. Yehovah is also a transliteration, if you accept the full four four letters and three vowels as the correct source Hebrew.

And I will change the phrase, watching here for informed counterpoint. StevenAvery.ny (talk) 12:25, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

"The Eternal One" is a substitution, not a translation. The same applies to the readings "HaSem" and "HaMaqor". A translation would be, e.g., reading "Adonai Tzaoth" as "Lord of Hosts". Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:31, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

"Yehovah" is neither a translation or a transcription -- it's a botched hybrid form generated by Christians, who misunderstood the conventions of Q're Perpetuum, and so intercalated the consonants of YHWH with the vowels of Adonai, producing a strange result which never actually existed in Hebrew. This was a mistake that Jews trained in traditional scribal/recitational lore would not have made... AnonMoos (talk) 14:43, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

"scholars are agreed"

"The original pronunciation is unknown but scholars are agreed that Yahweh is the most likely reconstruction."

The recent paper by Pavlos D Vasileiadis and Nehemia Gordon placed on Academia.edu shows that this is simply not true.

“Transmission of the Tetragrammaton in Judeo-Greek and Christian Sources” («Η Μεταβίβαση του Τετραγράμματου στις Ιουδαιο-Ελληνικές και Χριστιανικές Πηγές»), Accademia: Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin, Vol. 18 (2019). [In press]

Beyond that, top Jewish scholars like Emanuel Tov and Lawrence Schiffman afaik, do not take any public position.

I will change the wording of the sentence to be more accurate. StevenAvery.ny (talk) 11:38, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

During most of the 19th and 20th centuries, "Yahweh" definitely had more scholarly support than any other alternative, to the point that it appeared in the Jerusalem Bible translation. If you think this has changed, then you need to explain what the alleged change is a little more than just mentioning one yet-unpublished paper... AnonMoos (talk) 14:47, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Use of Anchor Bible Dictionary to back the claim about a form of the word

This isn't automatically a reliable source, nor was it properly sourced. Every entry has an author and the author needs to be named. If it's to be restored we need the name of the author and a quote. Doug Weller talk 08:25, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Frank Moore Cross doesn't mention the Tetragrammaton

I've got a searchable copy of the book and I checked. Those pages are discussing "the divine name Yahweh" and he starts the relevant bit with "Again, new evidence for the morphological analysis of the verbal element yahweh has appeared in Amorite personal names, notably in the Mari texts." Why is this being used here instead of at Yahweh? Doug Weller talk 08:32, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

four vowels

Josephus says in wars of the jews that the divine name consists of four vowels T5hgghjk (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

If you want to add something to a Wiki page, you usually require a cited source. Just saying "Josephus says in wars of the jews" without citing a published source that discusses said words, or even the actual reference in Josephus' Wars of the Jews that you're referring to, will be removed. Stephen Walch (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

book 5 chapter 5 verse 7 T5hgghjk (talk) 16:49, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

book 5 chapter 5 verse 7 T5hgghjk (talk) 16:50, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

...and the published source that discusses said words? (Stephen Walch (talk) 23:40, 6 February 2020 (UTC))

T5hgghjk -- for a number of reasons, that isn't authoritative for what the original Hebrew pronunciation was, of course... AnonMoos (talk) 01:59, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Gibberish sentence

The Elephantine papyri, on which the jhw form appears, with the form of jhh are found on Elephantine.

This pseudo-sentence begins the second paragraph of § Non-biblical sources. I'm not familiar with the research and so can't figure out what it's trying to say.
--Thnidu (talk) 22:16, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

The whole subsection, inserted on 24 November 2018, did indeed need rewriting and Englishing. Bealtainemí (talk) 11:42, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

@Bealtainemí: Thanks for fixing it. --Thnidu (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

User:Bealtainemí's question

I did not completely understand the question(s) asked here. But I looked at the 3 items given in the article's bibliography at the bottom, and they basically are 3 different versions of Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldaic Lexicon: one in Latin, one in English, and one in German. Neither of the 3 is the original, but they seem to be good and authentic versions, and so I believe they should remain on the page, unless someone has better versions in one or all of these languages? Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 16:48, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Gesenius's own thoughts are given in the two sources cited in the section of the article that speaks of Gesenius, one in German, a later and slightly more developed one in Latin. Gesenius is an important figure in the study of the Tetragrammaton. Do the authors of the three sources placed in a special section headed "Bibliography" add to Gesenius's own words anything really significant? Bealtainemí (talk) 18:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

It would seem to me that they provide a source where Gesenius own words and his overall linguistics research on the text of the Hebrew Bible can be checked. Are you suggesting they are not needed here in the Tetragrammaton article? Are all versions referred to here present in Gesenius' own article? As I see it, they do not do any harm with their presence here, and since Gesenius' research is indeed important to present scholarship on the Tetragrammaton, I would not go so far as removing them. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 20:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Does anything in any of them add anything worthwhile to what Gesenius wrote about the Tetragrammaton (what this article is about)? There is no point in stuffing Wikipedia articles with kilobytes that "do no harm" but do no good. Bealtainemí (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I still don't completely understand. "What Gesenius wrote about the Tetragrammaton" - whatever the article says about this matter, doesn't this content has to be accessible and verifiable for the user and reader? These items add to the verifiability of the content. Are you saying that just referring the user to the page in the book is enough, and there is no need to provide also a link to the entire book? The links were useful to me in trying to verify issues that come up regularly for debate here. Thank you. warshy ^(¥¥) 22:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand you. You ask for "a link to the entire book". A link to the entirety of each of the two books written by Gesenius himself is given where they, both of them, are discussed in the article. What more do you want? Do you perhaps want each of the links to each of the two entire books by Gesenius to be repeated under "Bibliography"? Or what? Bealtainemí (talk) 07:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I think I understand you better now. Since Genesius' own original books are referred to in the section that discusses his contribution to the subject, there is no need to have a separate specific bibliographical section containing only 3 versions of Genesius' Hebrew Lexicon (supposedly, the 'same' Lexicon, in Latin, in English, and in German). So, if you strongly believe that Bibliography section as it currently is is not needed in this article, please, go ahead and remove that entire section. I won't oppose such a move. Also, for more detailed research on Genesius himself and his Hebrew Bible work there is his own page on WP, which is already linked to this article. Thanks for clarifying your position to me. Be well, warshy ^(¥¥) 16:36, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Warshy. Unless someone defends the unhelpful Bibliography section (three variants of Gesenius' Lexicon, none of which is his), I will remove it tomorrow. Bealtainemí (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Let me express that in my opinion, is very good to read a book in English language in the English wiki, and that, it could be added the Samuel Prideaux Tregelles's words. --Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 04:28, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

It is a pity that Tregelles didn't just translate Gesenius' book, instead of giving his own personal reaction ("What an idea!", etc.). There is no reason for privileging his by then strongly minority view rather than some of those who hold what is now practically a consensus among scholars. You are right in saying that an English translation should, where possible, be provided in the English Wikipedia. I am therefore giving a link to the excellent comment-free translation by Robinson. Bealtainemí (talk) 12:41, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot User:Bealtainemí for all your work on this. All the information about Gesenius is fundamental to this page, in my view, and I completely endorse all the additions and corrections you have made so far. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:12, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Warshy, let me congratulate you again on your excellent collaboration and the product of your work, which in my opinion was better now, than it was for many years.. If other pronunciations other than YHWH have been proposed, it is because over the centuries, evidence has somehow been lacking to conclusively establish Yahweh as the original pronunciation, or because existing evidence does not seem to favor Yahweh pronunciation. I think that all the ideas proposed are part of the erudition, and these are always mentioned when they are a critical discourse. Wikipedia allows the inclusion of alternative theoretical formulations as part of the scientific process. Some proponents of alternatives to Yahweh are not exactly a minority: George Wesley Buchanan, Roy Kotansky, Jeffrey Spier, Nehemia Gordon, Scott J. Jones, Carl D. Franklin, Thomas D. Ross, G. A. Riplinger, John Hinton, Thomas M. Strouse, P. D. Vasileiadis, Daniel Faivre, G. Gertoux, etc. (there are another ones of the middle ages John Gill (theologian), Johannes Buxtorf II Elias Levita, Godfrey Higgins, Peter Whitfield, Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, William Fulke, John Owen (theologian), Nicholas Fuller, Johannes Buxtorf, Thomas Gataker, Johann Leusden, etc.). Although it has not happened, but even if these points of view had become obsolete because they are currently refuted, they remain as a paradigm, not as pseudoscience. Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

If you agree with me (which I do not believe is a correct assertion) then there was no need for your long and unclear argument after that. I, for one, know that I do not agree with you. For you, as well as other partisans of the alleged yehovah form of the tetragrammaton for different reasons of religious belief, the first thing I would say is this: There are probably tens of thousands of possible combinations of the 4 consonants with 5 possible vowels (I would appreciate it if someone could calculate this mathematical matrix and give me the exact number of possible combinations), and yehovah is certainly one of these possible combinations. But the correct combination is yehovah, and NOT Jehovah. The consonant "j/J" and/or its sound simply does NOT EXIST in Ancient Biblical Hebrew. This misunderstanding originates in a mistranslation of the possible pronunciation of the word from German into English. Now, the German original analysis that yielded the possible 'jehovah' pronunciation was already a translation and an interpretation in itself. But once this translation and interpretation somehow got mistakenly carried over into English and became a religious belief and a religious sect, it just became also at the same time one of the many Christian misunderstandings of the ancient Hebrew text. Nothing more than that: a mistranslation and a misunderstanding. Of the possible tens of thousands of possible combinations I mentioned above my favorite one is yahoveh. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:40, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Warshy, in Wikipedia it doesn't matter what our preference is: Wikipedia only presents the view of what are considered to be reliable sources.

Jairon, Wikipedia presents the view of what are considered to be reliable sources, and mentions only as of historical interest what was thought in past centuries and millennia. Of course, in the Middle Ages (but not before) and until about 200 years ago, most presumed that YHWH was pronounced "Jehovah", but not any more. I don't see how you can claim that the dozen or so more recent names that you mention, some of whom appear to be Jehovah's Witnesses, "are not exactly a minority". They are a minority, a very small minority. Wikipedia cannot put them on the same level as what is, practically speaking, the scholarly consensus.

That is really irrelevant here. What we have been talking about is Gesenius, not majorities or minorities except insofar as Gesenius speaks of them. Bealtainemí (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

"Yahu" as a supposed vocalization of the Tetragrammaton

The Encyclopædia Britannica says that "the tribe of Levi, to which Moses belonged, probably knew the name Yahweh, which originally may have been (in its short form Yo, Yah, or Yahu) a religious invocation of no precise meaning evoked by the mysterious and awesome splendour of the manifestation of the holy". It does not "affirm that the Name in earliest times may have been Yo, Yah, or Yahu". It does not say, as you make out, that "Yahu" (a vocalization perhaps of a trigrammaton YHW?) is a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), any more than it says "Yah" is a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton. It speaks of three "short forms" of "Yahweh", only one of which, "Yah", stands as an independent word in the Bible, the others appearing as prefix (Yo-) or suffix (-yahu) of names. "Yahu" appears also, it seems, as YHW in Elephantine texts written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. Bealtainemí (talk) 10:30, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Kind regards respectable Bealtainemí. So why delete the text instead of correcting it? Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry if I bother you. --Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 16:23, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Because it was put as a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton, which it isn't. Bealtainemí (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Romanization versus original text

Quite frequently the article refers to romanizations of Hebrew letters without giving the actuul letters. Would it be reasonable to change, e.g., The letters YHWH are consonants. to "The letters י (Yod), ה (Heh) and ו (Waw) in יהוה are consonants."?. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Notes

Quoting McKenna

I deleted the sentence, After McKenna reject the pronounciation Jehovah, he states that "scholars today pronunce... Yahweh, but no one really knows precisely the correct pronunciation... Speculation about its pronunciation has led a consensus of scholars today to say Yahweh when referring to the Tetragrammaton.", because everything that's said in the quote has already been said before. @Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco: You re-inserted it with the edit summary, The first paragraph is non by McKenna, which I don't understand. I think, there is no need to say everything twice. --Rsk6400 (talk) 19:52, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Respectable Rsk6400. I added the text for two reasons:

1) McKenna's idea must be attributed ("speculation about its pronunciation has led a consensus of scholars today to say Yahweh when referring to the Tetragrammaton"). You can read the words by Jimmy Wales at Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

If you could demonstrate that no one really knows precisely the correct pronunciation of YHWH by a consensus, I don't oppose.

2) When somebody reads that John E. McKenna recognizes both the absence of certainty and the presence of scholarly consensus and calls "Jehovah" a "nonsense word", the whole idea is not read, it is not read that he is not involved in the consensus, which he makes clear in the next sentence: "no one really knows precisely the correct pronunciation... speculation about its pronunciation has led a consensus of scholars today to say Yahweh when referring to the Tetragrammaton". If only the first sentence is left, it reads that McKenna support this pronunciation.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 20:31, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

What is reported is McKenna's view, excluding the "Jehovah" interpretation and substantiating the existence of what is more than just a majority viewpoint: a consensus about the likely original pronunciation, a working hypothesis about how it was pronounced. You seem to be setting up instead a non-existent straw man view that this is instead an absolute certainty. Bealtainemí (talk) 21:17, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your participation Bealtainemí, and for taking up your time. The form of pronunciation Yahweh is widely accepted and not by a minory; what I guess that must to be atribuited is the authors that affirm that the Yahweh is speculative, and that there are lack of evidence. In the actual sentence it reads

• "John E. McKenna recognizes the absence of precise knowledge of the original pronunciation" (Ok)
• "[John E. McKenna recognizes] the scholarly consensus that it will have been "Yahweh"" (Here it is necesary a clarification)
• "[John E. McKenna recognizes] and the impossibility that it can have been "Jehovah", which he calls a "nonsense word"" (Ok)

Of course, McKenna uses the form Yahweh in his book, but he say:

Scholars today pronounce His Name as 'Yahweh", but no one really knows precisely th correct pronunciation. His name was never pronounced out loud and the vowels of the Tetragrammaton were never writtend down. Speculation about its pronunciation has led a consensus of scholars today to say Yahweh when referring to the Tetragrammaton. But we know that no one knows precisely how it would have been pronounce had it ever been sounded out loud, which it was not. We are fortunate that English translator have consistently translated the Tetragrammaton_(the four consonants) of the scribal tradition as 'Lord,' a practice followed consistently by the translator's of the Septuagint's with Kurios.

If it can be reads that McKenna recognizes the scholarly consensus that it will have been "Yahweh", it seems that he holds that pronunciation is correct and it seems that he agrees with the actual consensus. What a pity to insist, but I think we should attribute his words, and make it clear that McKenna does not support the pronunciation Yahweh. I do not read in the book that McKenna says that Yahweh should be pronounced, that Yahweh is acceptable, or that the consensus should be followed. Immediately when he speaks of the consensus, he says "but we know that no one knows precisely how it would have been pronounce had it ever been sounded out loud, which it was not". --Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 04:52, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have to completely question the quoting of J. E. McKenna: who is he? What's he got to do with whether "Yahweh" is speculative or not? Is he an authority on the subject of the pronunciation of YHWH? Is his book even about the subject he's being quoted on? What exactly is the point of quoting from him when what he says is already noted in the Wiki article from Robert Alter, R. R. Reno and Mark P. Arnold? This is an online encyclopedia, you don't have to quote from *everybody* who's ever voiced an opinion on the pronunciation of YHWH when one source is enough. I'm actually going to remove the entire quote from McKenna as the answer to my questions above are "nobody"; "nothing"; "no"; "no"; and "there is no point". Stephen Walch (talk) 07:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Jairon, what was said was that McKenna recognizes that the consensus exists, not that he himself agrees with it – nor that he dissents from it.

Jairon, you have no grounds for saying the consensus that speculation led to is "speculative", Speculation led Einstein to a theory that is not merely speculative, but about which there is consensus.

Stephen Walch, no objection on my part. If someone wants it reinstated, it should be modified to McKenna says that in Israel the Tetragrammaton was never pronounced out loud and no one knows precisely how it would have sounded if it were; speculation has led to consensus among scholars to use "Yahweh", not "Jehovah", which he calls a "nonsense word". Bealtainemí (talk) 08:01, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

So, if McKenna is not appropriate, it would be very useful to have a list of authorities in the field, and it would be better if the sources could be accessed freely. --Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 01:20, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

No, see WP:RS. Regarding your obsession with "Jehovah", you might also want to take a look at WP:NPOV. --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:32, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry User:Stephen Walch if you're offended or if my words have not been appropriate. I know you're just volunteering your time and helping with the article. Just understand that there are years of work on that article. What a pity to insist, but if it is very valuable to know that authorities "on the subject of the pronunciation of YHWH". Anyway, thanks.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

That "What a pity to insist, but if it is very valuable to know that authorities "on the subject of the pronunciation of YHWH". Anyway, thanks." sentence does not make any sense, it is not a complete sentence, in fact. --Qumranhöhle (talk) 21:37, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello Jairon: I'm not offended in the slightest. I'm just trying to keep out nonsense from Wikipedia which many people come to in order to get information on a subject. As for the list of authorities on this present subject, we've already quoted from two: Gesenius and Alter. These are Hebrew scholars or linguists with numerous published works. So anyone of this vein would be worth quoting as long as they say something different to what's already been said: Joseph Fitzmyer; Emanuel Tov; Kristin De Troyer; Armin Lange; Albert Pietersma; Moisés Silva; James Barr. There's probably a few more of similar calibre; those with only self-published works should not be cited. @Qumranhöhle: it's apparent English isn't Jairon's first language, nevertheless I understood his question well enough. Think we can give them some leeway, don't you agree? :) Stephen Walch (talk) 09:29, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Could you expain the sentence to me? Because I really don't get it. --Qumranhöhle (talk) 09:53, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Certainly (slight re-wording): it is very valuable to know who the authorities are "on the subject of the pronunciation of YHWH". - Hopefully that clears things up! Stephen Walch (talk) 13:27, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, your translation skills are admirable ;-) Anyway, I go certainly with your initial statement "I'm just trying to keep out nonsense from Wikipedia" even though this sometimes seems to be a lost case. --Qumranhöhle (talk) 13:51, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Tenses

I have a problem with some of the translations of phrases like Hebrew: אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, romanized: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh that use the English present tense with no elaboration. Unlike modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew has no present tense. Strictly speaking, it has no past or future tenses either, but rather aspects that are often, but not always, used to express temporality. In particular, the form אֶהְיֶה‎ is what would be used to express future tense in Modern Hebrew. I believe that Aramaic has similar issues. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:46, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Without entering the complicated matter of the West Semitic and especially Hebrew TAM system (at which point along a long diachronic development?) what would be your alternative proposal? A footnote or an English present tense/future tense alternative notation? --Qumranhöhle (talk) 11:52, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, I don't like I will be what I will be any better, since that isn't really a future tense in Hebrew, so the best thing might be a footnote where appropriate. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:43, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Notes

Short forms

That new passage 2.4 "Short forms" is quite problematic, as can be expected. Let me begin with the most embarrassing, and this shockingly concerns the Encyclopedia Britannica (I am honestly disappointed). The article there has a visible history, stating that some Deepti Mahajan in 2008 added the site with content from "The Catholic Encyclopedia - Jehovah." and a certain Aakanksha Gaur added content from "Ancient History Encyclopedia - Yahweh." in 2018. Both are written by non-specialists. What the EncBrit made of this medley in the end, is a shame for the honoured Encyclopedia Britannica. It cannot any longer serve as a source for Wikipedia (in fact, Wikipedia may well have informed one of the steps that lead to the result visible in EncBrit. I will therefore delete that passage. The remainder is likewise problematic but for different reasons. --Qumranhöhle (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I've got similar issues with technical topics. When an encyclopedia gets names wrong, as in the fictitious Principal Control Program (it should be Primary Control Program), I'm reluctant to trust it for other details. Are there any other EB articles with glaring errors? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:35, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Qumranhöhle: I guess I'm a little puzzled. I think this is a misreading of the article history; the two edits you are referring to are not additions of article content; rather, they are additions of external links (which you'll see if you click on "info" and then "external websites".) You might have good cause to condemn EB, but this isn't one of them. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 22:55, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, you are right, I was mislead by some strange content-related overlap concerning "Moses' mother". Of course the name is recorded in the Tora, but the use of this and the argument drawn from it are curiously akin and not something that is discussed in the scholarly literature that way. So this is not an argument and I have to rephrase my criticism: This article by EB is disappointing as it contains inaccuracies and errors (e.g., "Teva-ʿot"). --Qumranhöhle (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Even in a form revised by the author, what Qumranhöhle calls "that new passage 2.4" still says: "Reinhard G. Kratz reports that various shortened forms of Yahweh (YH, YHH, YHW) appear in the Hebrew Bible and extrabiblical sources". This is based selectively on the brief statement in a footnote, "In the Hebrew Bible as well as extra-biblical sources, the divine appears with different spellings (YH, YHH, YHW, YHWH)." YHWH is not one of various shortened forms and, of the three shortened forms, two do not appear in the Hebrew Bible, while the extra-biblical sources are are not only mentioned generically but specified in the article. I make bold to remove that reference.

I understand "w³" to refer to a hieroglyph that, at least in some contexts, may correspond to /w/ or may represent a different sound. "Yhw3" is found in dozen of highly reputable sources (just Google "YHW3"), and "Yhw³" in very few. However, in view of the perplexity of Jeffro77, I have made bold also to change to YHW³. Bealtainemí (talk) 11:24, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I agree completely. Such sentences are the result of random googling without any grasp of the material, what is important, what is not, what is central and what is an aside in a footnote. I shall not say more, apart from thank you also for the other corrections. de Troyer's statement as initially mirrored in the article was likewise misleading without mentioning Elephantine etc. It's just annoying if one is busy all the time cleaning up behind some obstinate *** "users". --Qumranhöhle (talk) 11:36, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up some of that awful mess. Only just seeing this Talk thread now, and I'm surprised the unhistorical reference to Moses' mother was retained in the article beyond the beginning of this discussion (or indeed much, much earlier). Also, I understand that "Yhw3" does appear in reputable sources, but I'm also aware that even reputable sources sometimes use a typographically convenient character when it is visually similar to another. So it wasn't clear.--Jeffro77 (talk) 22:36, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation

youtu.be/yeeA_Abd5Nk Mkleberte (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation has been handed down through the ages by Rabbis. The Hebrew has the vowel points in numerous writings. YehoVah is the name Mkleberte (talk) 20:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

What Jewish texts have the Niqud Hebrew: יְהֹוָה? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 00:05, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Margin notes are not text of Scripture

This revert seems to ignore that a series of notes added to a Scriptural text later on in a margin do not thereby become part of the text of Scripture. This includes marginal commentary about the etymology of names, as in the Codex Marchalianus. Isn't that so? Bealtainemí (talk) 20:04, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

The Masoretic Ketibh (partly conveyed by diacritics in the text, partly by annotations in the margins) is most definitely part of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. But what you're asking about is something different... AnonMoos (talk) 22:33, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes indeed. Quite different. The reverting edit by Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco conceerned the text of the Septuagint (in Greek), not the Masoretic text (im Hebrew). Bealtainemí (talk) 09:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Let me express that Codex Marchalianus (Q) has been remarkable for discussion about the name YHWH and its hexaplaric material in its margins [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. In Q it can be found nomina sacra for kurios and in its marginal notes Ιαω or ΠΙΠΙ. I don't know where you get the idea for a second hand correction or "a series of notes added to a Scriptural text later", and even if it were true, B. M. Metzger says that "the margins contain a variety of 'helps to the reader' derived from the researches of Origen". pp 24 (94). The argument that YHWH was added later, is not valid to exclude the manuscript, since this would be like saying that other manuscripts (P.Fuad 266, P.Oxy 656) should be ignored because a second hand added YHWH or Kurios. If it has been widely discussed to contain YHWH, why does no one downplay the speculation that the marginal notes or the name YHWH was added later, or does it mention that the LXX did not contain the name or ΠΙΠΙ was added later?.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 16:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I did not mean to declare that the marginal notes were added by a scribe different from the one who wrote the Septuagint text in the Codex Marchalianus, but I think it likely to an extremely high degree. Just look at this reproduction of a page of the codex. Do you really think that the notes in the margin are in the same hand as the central Septuagintal Scripture text? Whether, in spite of appearances, the same scribe wrote both, in two different styles, you can't deny that he used a very different pen. All I am saying is that the two marginal notes that contain ιαω are not part of the manuscript's Septuagint text, which does not have ΙΑΩ anywhere. Do you disagree? Bealtainemí (talk) 18:34, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Let me reply that in previous messages, in the view history of the page editions, and in the sources I wrote, it has never argued that YHWH appears in the main text of the Q, and no scholar has argued that it supports an original YHWH in the LXX, but this does not diminish its importance. I proved with the sources that this manuscript is widely discussed for the content of the name in its marginal notes, and therefore must be presented in the article. Please respond...

• Is not important that Q is one of the oldest mss with hexaplaric readings with the name?
• Is not important that Q is one of the biblical manuscripts with ΙΑΩ? ΙΑΩ has not been found in another hexaplaric manuscript different from the septuagintal 4Q120.
• if the appearance of YHWH in Q is mentioned in many reliable sources, is this fact not important? Only 18 are included in this section of the discussion. The amount of reliable sources shown on Google scholar is impressive.
• There is extensive discussion of the name YHWH by this manuscript by scholars.
• This manuscript is also mentioned by the existence of YHWH in the Greek form ΠΙΠΙ, in conjunction with the words of Jerome, who said that some ignorant Christians mentioned PIPI.
• In P.Fuad 266 or P.Oxy 656 has been contemporary written YHWH or Kurios to the time of making the manuscript. Why this fact reduces notability?
• This handwritten evidence should not be included in the article because "series of notes added to a Scriptural text later on in a margin do not thereby become part of the text of Scripture"?
• When YHWH's presence has been discussed in the original LXX, was the hexapla not mentioned? Even scholars Pietersma and Rösel, who support an original Kurios mention it.

This piece of history in the transmition of the LXX or the OG is really important.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 23:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I have not, of course, denied that Codex Marchalianus is important, especially regarding ιαω; but who do you think says Codex Marchalianus shows that the Septuagint used ΙΑΩ where the Masoretic text has the Tetragrammaton? Scholars report that ιαω is found in two specified marginal notes written in the manuscript, but how many say any part of the manuscript's Septuagint text itself has ΙΑΩ? Bealtainemí (talk) 09:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Let me say that I have answered that question twice before.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

About "who do you think says Codex Marchalianus shows that the Septuagint used ΙΑΩ where the Masoretic text has the Tetragrammaton?" let me say that I never has been affirm that thing. Please give me a strong reason without deviating from the topic. Why do you deleted the Q if it has been important in the discussions of the tetragrammaton?--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 17:40, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Greetings User:Warshy. Do you have any independent or different comments to make? [23].--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 15:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I would have undone your latest edits. Your entire argument for the Christian use of ιαω are based on 3 very rare, and in my view, very dubious medieval manuscripts. Based on the scanty and non-notable secondary sources you use, I would be inclined to say that the issue is actually non-notable for this article. But the uses of the Tetragrammaton in medieval Christianity is not really my main research concern, so I will defer to the determinations made by Bealtainemí on it. In general, I believe he has done a very good job of keeping your non-notable and biased original research editing here in check. warshy ^(¥¥) 17:45, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

At what point have I affirmed that ιαω is the word originally written in the lXX?--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 18:11, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

So, if it is not written in LXX, as we already knew abundantly before you popped back up here, this whole discussion, and your latest edits to the page, are indeed completely irrelevant to the page. It is just your old biased original research, and we will keep weeding it out until you desist again. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:27, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Excuse me Warshy, I just need that someone defend why an important manuscript was deleted if it is important in the tetragrammaton discussions. Any other unrelated comment is irrelevant.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 18:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I, for one, am not at all convinced that this obscure and secondary manuscript is indeed important and notable for this page. I strongly suspect, knowing your biased and tendentious editing and your history of trying to publish your original research on Wikipedia, that this obscure and secondary manuscript is actually non-notable and rather irrelevant to this page. But, as you keep making your biased additions, and pushing your original research, all this will just become more and more clear. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:56, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, but it has not yet been argued why this manuscript was deleted if it is important in the discussion of the name YHWH. If it is not defensible, there is no reason why it should not be added.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 19:06, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Reply to Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco's 17:40 comment: Then we can close, I think. Bealtainemí (talk) 19:14, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I concur. This is all non-notable and rather irrelevant. warshy ^(¥¥) 19:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't feel comfortable contradicting the two editors, but their arguments have not been able to defend the reason why the manuscript was deleted, knowing that it is important in the discussions of the name YHWH, and can be seen with the naked eye.--Jairon Levid Abimael Caál Orozco (talk) 19:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)