What about ΙΑΩ in Greek?

Greek texts of the New Testament universally render the Tetragrammaton in verse quotations as κύριος, reflecting the Jewish tradition of reading אֲדֹנָי “the Lord” when the Name appears in the text.

However, among the Greek translations of the texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the most common Greek way of rendering the Tetragrammaton was as ΙΑΩ (iota–alpha–omega). Syllable-initial iota behaves like the y in English and the yod in Hebrew. This means that ΙΑ in Greek would present יָ in Hebrew (like ya in English). Since there is no intervocalic h sound in Greek and the vowels alpha and omega do not form a diphthong, it is as if it represents יָהוֹ (Yāhố) or יָ֫הוֹ (Yā́hô).

A New Surprise - Yehoví as “My YHVH”

More than seven years since my last post on this blog and in a surprising twist, I came across someone on Facebook’s Nerdy Biblical Language Majors (NBLM) named Joseph Weissman who has argued (under Reformed Masora on Substack) something I never thought I would run into—namely, that both יְהוָֹה Yəhōvā́(h) and יְהוִֹה Yəhōvī́(h) are the real points of the Name and that the -i sound represents a possessive pronoun, such that Yəhōvī́ means “My Yehovah.” He writes about this on his Substack here. So, let’s look at his argument and make some comments.

An Unread Letter

In hopes of resolving some of our disputes, I wrote a letter to Nehemia Gordon with several morphological issues related to the Tetragrammaton as it is found in the manuscripts. Mr. Gordon returned my mail with his intentions of having no contact with me because I suggested on CARM that, given the obviousness of the problems with his position, I am driven to conclude that he maintains his positions because of the following that he has amassed (he’s married to the position now) and that he depends on the income from the books and speaking engagements that he sells those who have started to follow him. Because of this, I will not have any chance to engage Mr. Gordon and sway him from this Yehovah nonsense.

Cholam: Missing in Action

Introduction

The vast majority of Hebrew scholars are in agreement that the name יהוה is an instance of kri perpetuum. The vowels that are written on the name belong to the word אדני and not to the letters of the name יהוה. Nehemia Gordon disagrees, though, and here is why he’s wrong.

Hebrew Orthography

The following is pulled from a letter that I wrote to Nehemia Gordon when I thought that discourse was an option. These are three questions that need to be answered regarding Hebrew orthography if Gordon’s position is ever to be considered viable.

Jehovah Rants and Me

This blog is a reaction to Nehemia Gordon’s claim that the Tetragrammaton should be pronounced Yehovah and that the Masoretes were actually preserving the correct vowels of the name all along. Those who added vowels to the Bible wrote the Name with the vowels יְהוָֹה, which would be read mark-for-mark as Yehovah (in academic transcription, Yɘhōvâ), and Gordon claims that this is how the name should be pronounced. By means of this blog, I want to highlight the many problems that exist in Gordon’s arguments and to defend the scholarly reconstruction יַהְוֶה (Yahveh) as the best guess we have at how the name was originally pronounced.