Did the conjurer get his knowledge of the pronunciation of YHWH from an esoteric Jewish tradition? Or did it possibly come to him by way of Greek magic ? This theory would explain the b as the third letter in the name-cf. Jesus’ play on Peter = “stone”), but in the present case the conjurer was giving the veritable etymology of the word. Now plays on names are most common in Semitic antiquity (cf. To be sure, only a mighty conjurer would dare to express the magical energy latent in an ordinary name. As it were he confronts the devils with his happy etymology: you cannot touch this man, for his very name is a talisman I will pronounce that name for you, and when you hear it, you will tremble and flee. But in spelling the name the exorcist has by a jeu d’esprit spelled it out he has expressed the pronunciation of the ineffable name because of its magical potency. the exorcist’s client was Baruk, or Berik, or Berekiah (or the like). My theory to explain the peculiar phenomenon is this: the name of. C.) pronounced that name, nor in any name-composition in the Old Testament is the Tetragrammaton used it is represented by Yeho-, or -Yahu, -Yah. ![]() How came the exorcist to spell out this divine name occurring in the composition of a personal name? Certainly no Jew of the period (the bowls belong to the sixth or seventh century A. This is the Yahweh or Yahveh, as it is also spelled, of modern critical science. Now the simplest reading of the five following characters (we must supply the vowels) gives Yahbeh but b was probably soft and the transliteration might be more exactly represented by Yahveh. Berechiah = “BRK-Yahu (or Yah)”, = “Yahu-has-blessed” (Yahu being an earlier form of YHWH, or its contraction) Baruk, or Berik, likewise = “Blessed-of-Yahu.” We expect then after our first component “blessed” the divine name. But the typical Jewish name (like ancient Semitic names in general) contains a divine element in composition. The first four characters, however, are naturally read berîk, Aramaic for “blessed.” This suggests good Jewish names like Baruch (the Hebrew equivalent of the Aramaic form), Berechiah, etc. Now the man’s name which I have transcribed above in Hebrew characters is one that cannot be at once explained from Semitic or Iranian philology (most of the names in the bowls are Persian). I give these circumstances in order to indicate that we are dealing with actual personal names, not with arbitrary magical formulas. The man’s name in the Aramaic (the characters are the Jewish square script) 6 is: בר’כ’הב’ה son of Mami his wife’s name is Ispandarmed, daughter of X (the mother’s name is mutilated). In the bowl in question (3997) 5, there is read the adjuration that the evil spirits shall not appear to a certain man and his wife. Bowl showing the “ineffable name”.Įngaged in deciphering the collection of “Jewish” incantation bowls in the Museum, I have come upon a text which for the first time in the Judaistic field certainly represents the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. On the basis of such traditions and on philological grounds there has arisen the modern scientific pronunciation Yahweh (generally, though erroneously in English, spelled Jahweh). Similar forms are also found in early magical and gnostic papyri 4. The Greek Fathers Theodoret and Epiphanius report that the Samaritans maintained the pronunciation as ’Iαβε, and the present writer has discovered in a Samaritan document of the beginning of the nineteenth century an Arabic transcription of the name which is to be pronounced Yahwah, or Yahwéh 3. ![]() In the King James Version it is spelled in capitals to distinguish it from the same word used as an epithet.īut a tradition of the pronunciation survived, as is so often the case with survivals, in certain unorthodox quarters. e., YHWH) with vowel points, indicating that another word should be pronounced in its stead, and it is this other word “Lord” which in almost all the translations of the Bible, down to the more scientific attempts of modern times, represents the sacred name. The Jews themselves, according to their own tradition, had given up the public pronunciation of the word before the Christian era, and while there is evidence that the knowledge still survived in esoteric circles among the Jews 2, the tradition of the pronunciation was at last utterly lost to them. But the vocalization of the word known to English readers, “Jehovah,” is a fairly modern invention, arising in the middle ages 1, in fact a philological monstrosity. This name consists of four consonants which may be represented in English by the letters YHWH. ![]() One of the mysteries of Biblical scholarship is the correct form and pronunciation of the name of the God of Israel.
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