quote:
Originally posted by Arachnophilia
i'm sort of hoping amlodhi in particular can show why the modern choice for pronounciation is what it is.
Hi Arachnophilia,
It doesn't look like you need my help. I agree that the pronunciation of "Jehovah" came about with the translation into English because of a misunderstanding of the reason for the vowel pointing of "
יהוה" and by the character "J" (carrying the pronunciation "Y" in the Germanic languages) being misapplied with the introduction of the "J" sound into the English language.
Also, one additional instance of translational choices used to avoid repetition is the case of "adonai" and "YHWH" appearing together, i.e.
אדני יהוה as found, for instance, in Amos 1:8.
Here, substituting the vowel points for "adonai" into the "YHWH" (and thus reading "adonai") would result in the repetitive phrase "adonai Adonai".
In this case then, the Masoretic scribes chose to point "YHWH" with the modified vowels of "Elohim" which resulted in the form:
יֱהֹוִה . As in the cases above, the apparent pronunciation of this form would be something like "Ye-ho-wee". However (as you know), these vowel points were never intended to direct the pronunciation of "the Name" but only to indicate that "Elohim" should be read here instead of "the Name", (i.e., the phrase should be read "adonai Elohim" and
not "adonai Yehowee".
Your OP is excellent, and while I do understand wmscott's plea to convention, IMO you are correct that this convention has its basis in misunderstanding and error.
Amlodhi
This message has been edited by Amlodhi, 11-22-2004 02:11 PM
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