Post by iris89 on Jan 11, 2006 10:36:13 GMT -5
By Gérard Gertoux
President, Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits
September 2003
God's name, which one finds about 7000 times in the Bible under the form YHWH, possesses the unique and remarkable circumstance of not having been vocalized by nearly all translators. With this name being unpronounceable under its written form YHWH, some overconfident (or overzealous?) translators refused to confirm this paradox and preferred to vocalize it with an approximated form. Obviously, in every case, the proposed vocalizations were very rigorously criticized. A review of the past twenty centuries will allow us to appreciate the reasonings which favored or opposed the vocalization of God's name and to understand the origin of the controversy and the paradox of a name which can be written without being able to read it aloud.
BEFORE OUR COMMON ERA
The first translation of the Bible, called the Septuagint, was made by Jews at the beginning of the third century before our era. However, out of superstitious respect, these translators preferred to keep the Tetragram YHWH written in Hebrew within the Greek text. There was, however, one exception: a Jewish translator who preferred to insert it under the vocalized form Iaô (Iaw), which became well known at this time because the historians Varro and Diodorus Siculus quoted it in their books (History I:94:2; Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum). In spite of these precise testimonies, the form of Iaô found limited use and was very often slandered: a paradox of magnitudes. The great prophet Jeremiah explained that the objective of the false prophets was to cause people to forget the Name (Jr 23:27), an attempt nevertheless dedicated to be defeated (Ps 44:20; 21) because God reserves his Name for his servants (Is 52:6) and naturally for those who appreciate it (Mal 3:16). Abraham, who is the father of those who have faith, took pleasure in proclaiming this Name according to Genesis 12:8 and initiated a respectable biblical custom.
Furthermore, according to the prophet Joel, it is even obligatory to proclaim this Name in order to be saved during the great and formidable day of God (Jl 2:32). According to Exodus 23:13, refusal to pronounce a god's name is a refusal to worship the god in question, so refusal to pronounce the True God's name means a refusal to worship him (Jos 23:7). In spite of these exactitudes, the translators of the Septuagint self-justified their choice not to vocalize the Name, even going so far as to modify the verses of Leviticus 24:15, transforming them into : "(Š) a man who will curse God will bring the offence, but in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely, the entire assembly of Israel should stone him with stones; the alien resident as the native, in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely."
Paradoxically, as noted by Philo, a Jewish philosopher of the first century, to name God was worse than to curse him (De Vita Mosis II:203-206). The Talmud points out that they had started to remove these names (Yah, Yahu) that had been stamped on jars in order to protect their holiness ('Arakin 6a; Shabbat 61b). Out of respect, the Name was to be avoided in conversation, as proven by these remarks from Jewish books written in the second century BCE: "Do not accustom into the habit of naming the Holy One" and "someone who is continually swearing and uttering the Name will not be exempt from sin" (Si 23:9,10). It was held that the privilege of pronouncing the Name was strictly reserved for use inside the Temple (Si 50:20) and that it should not be communicated to foreigners (Ws 14:21).
FROM FIRST TO FIFTH CENTURY
Flavius Josephus, who understood the priesthood of this time very well, made it clear that at the time the Romans attacked the Temple the Jews called upon the fear-inspiring name of God (The Jewish War V:43 . He wrote he had no right to reveal this name to his reader (Jewish Antiquities II:275); however, he did give information of primary importance on the very pronunciation he wanted to conceal. However, in his work The Jewish War V:235, he stated: "The high priest had his head dressed with a tiara of fine linen embroidered with a purple border, and surrounded by another crown in gold which had in relief the sacred letters; these ones are four vowels." This description is excellent; moreover, it completes the one found in Exodus 28:36-39. However, as we know, there are no vowels in Hebrew but only consonants.
Regrettably, instead of explaining this apparent abnormality, certain commentators (influenced by the form Yahweh) mislead the readers of Josephus by indicating in a note that this reading was IAUE. Now, it is obvious that the "sacred letters" indicated the Tetragram written in paleo-Hebrew, not Greek. Furthermore, in Hebrew these consonants, Y, W, and H, do serve as vowels; they are, in fact, called "mothers of reading" (matres lectionis). The writings of Qumrân show that in the first century Y used as a vowel served only to indicate the sounds I and É, W served only for the sounds Ô and U, and a final H served for the sound A. These equivalences may be verified in thousands of words.
Additionally, the H was used as a vowel only at the end of words, never within them. So, to read the name YHWH as four vowels would be IHUA, that is IEUA, because between two vowels the H is heard as a slight E. Eusebius quoted a writer of great antiquity (before 1200 BCE?) called Sanchuniathon who spoke about the Jews in chapter four of his work entitled Phoenician History. Philo of Byblos translated this work into Greek at the beginning of our era, and Porphyry was familiar with it. Sanchuniathon maintained that he got his information from Ieroubal the priest of IÉÜÔ (Ieuw), that is the Jerubbaal found in Judges 7:1. According to Judges 7:1, Jerubbaal was the name of Judge Gideon who was a priest of Jehovah (Jg 6:26; 8:27), probably written IÉÜÔA (Ieuwa) in Greek.
Irenaeus of Lyons believed that the word IAÔ (Iaw in Greek, [Iah] in Latin) meant "Lord" in primitive Hebrew (Against Heresies II:24:2), and he esteemed that the use of this Hebrew word IAÔ to denote the Name of the unknown Father was intended to impress gullible minds in worship of mysteries (Against Heresies I:21:3). Furthermore, the Greek concept of an anonymous god, mainly supported by Plato, being mixed in with the Hebrew concept of the God with a personal name, engendered absolutely contradictory assertions. So, Clement of Alexandria wrote in his book (Stromateon V:34:5) that the Tetragram was pronounced Iaoue while writing and then later that God was without form and nameless (StromateonV:81:6).
In the same way, Philo a Jewish philosopher of the first century had good biblical knowledge and knew that the Tetragram was the divine name pronounced inside the temple, since he related: "there was a gold plaque shaped in a ring and bearing four engraved characters of a name which had the right to hear and to pronounce in the holy place those ones whose ears and tongue have been purified by wisdom, and nobody else and absolutely nowhere else" (De Vita Mosis II:114-132). However, in the same work, paradoxically, he explains, commenting on Exodus 3:14 from the LXX translation, that God has no name of his own (De Vita Mosis I:75).
The Christian translators (of heathen origin) not understanding Hebrew exchanged the Tetragram with Lord; Marcion in 140 C.E. even modified the expression "Let your Name be sanctified" into "Let your spirit be sanctified." On the other hand, some Christians (of Jewish origin) such as Symmachus kept the Tetragram written in Hebrew inside the Greek text (in 165). Eusebius clarified that Symmachus was an Ebionite, that is a Judeo-Christian, and that he had drafted a comment on Matthew's book (Ecclesiastical History VI:17). However, the Judeo-Christians were completely rejected after 135 of our era by the "Christians" as Jewish heretics.
Since the whole of translations were made according to the Septuagint, many readers ignored the problem of the vocalization of the Name. However, Jerome, who realized the first Latin translation directly from the Hebrew text, noted in his commentary on Psalm 8:2: "The name of the Lord in Hebrew has four letters, Yod He Waw He, which is the proper name of God which some people through ignorance, write P I P I (instead of h w h y) in Greek and which can be pronounced Yaho." Augustine of Hippo wrote around 400 that "Varro was rightly writing that the Jews worship the god Jupiter" (De consensu evangelistarum I:22). His remark proves that he probably confused the name of Jupiter (Ioue) with the Hebrew name of God Iaô, or perhaps Ioua.
FROM SIXTH TO ELEVENTH CENTURY
Some oriental Christians, due to their knowledge of the Hebraic language, prevented a complete disappearance of the name. Thus, Severi of Antioch used the form IÔA (Iwa) in a series of comments in chapter eight of John's gospel (Jn 8:5 , pointing out that it was God's name in Hebrew, a name that one finds also in the front pages of a codex of 6th century (Coislinianus) to assign the Invisible or the Unspeakable. It is interesting to note that Matthew's gospel in Hebrew was found in a work dated from the 6th to the 9th centuries (Nestor's book) and was attributed to the priest Nestorius, in which God's name appears under the Hebraic shape "The Name" (Hashem) instead of the usual "Lord." In commenting on a work of Severi of Antioch, the famous scholar James of Edesse made clear around 675 in a technical comment that the copyists of the Septuagint (of his time) were divided over whether to write the divine name Adonay and keep it within the Greek text in the form P I P I (corresponding in fact to the Hebrew name YHYH as he mentioned) or to translate it as Kurios and write it in the margin of the manuscript.
These quotations are exceptional, however, because even the famous translator Albinus Alcuini specified that although God's name was written Jod He Vau Heth, it was read Lord because this name was ineffable. Things began to change when translators again made translations directly from Hebrew and not from a translation. The first was doubtless the famous Karaite Yefet ben Eli who translated the Bible into Arabic. In copies of this translation (made around 960), one finds at times the Tetragram vocalized Yahwah (or Yahuwah), a normal transcription of the Hebrew shape Yehwah of this time (or Yahowah whom one finds in some codices within Babylonian punctuation) because in Arabic there are only three sounds: â, î, and û. The shape Yahuwah was apparently understood Yah Huwa "Oh He" in Arabic because it seems so in a manuscript dated 10th century.
Some famous imams, such as Abu-l-Qâsim-al-Junayd who died in 910 and now known as Fahr ad-Din Râzî, while knowing that God had 99 beautiful names explained that the supreme name (ism-al-a'zam) of God was Yâ Huwa not Allah. A follower of al-Junayd, the Soufi Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallâj (857-922), asserted: "Here are the words of which sense seemed ambiguous. Know that temples hold by His Yâ-Huwah and that bodies are being moved by His Yâ-Sîn. Now Hû and Sîn are two roads which end into the knowledge of the original point." Yâ-Sîn is a reference to the Sura 36 and Yâ-huwah wrote y'hwh in Arabic and makes reference to the Hebrew Tetragram. Al-Hallâj was rejected as a madman by his teacher al-Junayd and was executed in Bagdad as a heretic.
IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
The works of two Jewish scholars marked a decisive bend in the vocalization of God's name. In order to contend with influences of philosophy, Gnosticism, mystical, and even astrological beliefs which became increasingly influential [mainly due to the third century work entitled Sepher Yetsirah (Book of Forming) which speculated on the letters of the divine names], Maimonides, a Jewish scholar and famous talmudist, put forward a whole new definition of Judaism. His reasoning centered on the Name of God, the Tetragram, which was explained in his book entitled The Guide of the Perplexed, written in 1190. There he exposed the following powerful reasoning: the God of the philosophers did not require worship only polite acknowledgement of his existence since it would be impossible to establish relations with a nameless God (Elohim).
Then he proved that the Tetragram YHWH is the personal name of God, that is to say the name distinctly read (Shem hamephorash), which is different from all the other names such as Adonay, Shadday, Elohim (which are only divine titles having an etymology) because the Tetragram has no etymology. Maimonides knew well the problem of the pronunciation since Jewish tradition stated that it had been lost. On the other hand, he also knew that some Jews believed in the almost magical influence of the letters or the precise pronunciation of divine names, but he warned his readers against such practices as being pure invention or foolishness. The remarkable aspect of his argumentation lies in the fact that he managed to avoid controversy on such a sensitive subject.
He asserted that in fact it was only true worship which had been lost and not the authentic pronunciation of the Tetragram, since this was still possible according to its letters. To support this basic idea (true worship is more important than correct pronunciation), he quoted Sotah 38a to prove that the name is the essence of God and that is the reason it should not be misused; then he quoted Zechariah 14:9 to prove the oneness of this name and also Sifre Numbers 6:23-27 to show that the priests were obliged to bless by this name only. Then, to prove that pronunciation of the Name did not pose any problem in the past and that it had no magical aspect, he quoted Qiddushin 71a, which said that this name was passed on by certain rabbis to their sons.
Also, according to Yoma 39b, this pronunciation was widely used before the priesthood of Simon the Just, so proving the insignificance of a magical concept; at this time, the Name was used for its spiritual, not supernatural, aspect. Maimonides insisted on the fact that what was necessary to find was the spirituality connected to this Name and not the exact pronunciation. In order to demonstrate this important idea of understanding the sense and not the sound conveyed by this name, he quoted a relevant example. Exodus 6:3 indicates that before Moses the Name was not known. Naturally, this refers to the exact meaning of the Name and not its pronunciation because it would be unreasonable to believe that a correct pronunciation would have suddenly been able to incite the Israelites to action unless the pronunciation had magical power, a supposition disproved by subsequent events.
It is interesting to observe that Judah Halevi, another Jewish scholar, put forward almost the same arguments in his book The Kuzari published some years before in 1140. He wrote that the main difference between the God of Abraham and the God of Aristotle was the Tetragram. He proved also that this name was the personal name of God and that it meant "He will be with you." To show once again that it was the meaning of this name which was important and not the pronunciation, he quoted Exodus 5:2 where Pharaoh asked to know the Name, not the pronunciation which he used, and the authority of this Name. He pointed out that the letters of the Tetragram have the remarkable property of being matres lectionis, that is the vowels associated with other consonants, much as the spirit is associated with the body and makes it live (Kuzari IV:1-16). Judah Halevi specified in his work that the yod (Y) served as vowel I, the waw (W) served as O, and that the he (H) and the aleph (') served as A. According to these rudimentary indications, the name YHWH could be read I-H-O-A "according to its letters" (H is never used as vowel inside words; in that exceptional case, the letter aleph is preferred). A French erudite, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, explained that the best pronunciation of the divine Name according to its letters was Ihôah, and when he began to translate the Bible (Genesis, chapters I to X), he systematically used the name Ihôah.
The expression pronounced "according to its letters" which Maimonides used is strictly exact, only in Hebrew (vowel letters as pointed out by Judah Halevi). Joachim of Flora gave a Greek transliteration of the Tetragram I-E-U-E in his work entitled Expositio in Apocalypsim that he finished in 1195. He also used the expression "Adonay IEUE tetragramaton nomen" in another book entitled Liber Figurarum. The vocalization of the Tetragram was improved by Pope Innocent III in one of his sermons written around 1200. Indeed, he noticed that the Hebrew letters of the Tetragram Ioth, Eth, Vau (that is Y, H, W) were used as vowels and that the name IESUS had exactly the same vowels I, E, and U as the divine name. He also drew a parallel between the name written IEVE, pronounced Adonai, and the name written IHS but pronounced IESUS. These remarks on the Name concerned only a circle very restricted by medieval intellectuals.
Furthermore, Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) did not make known in the Catholic world that God's name was Ieue and not Lord; the Hebrew scholar Judah Hallevi (1075-1141) did not denounce the Jewish superstition to replace the name Ihôa by the substitute Adonay; the Soufi al-Hallâj (857-922) did not reveal in the Moslem world that Yâhuwa was the proper noun of Allah, etc.
FROM THIRTEEN TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From the thirteenth century, knowledge of the Hebrew language would progress considerably, involving notably the role of matres lectionis. For example, the famous scholar Roger Bacon wrote in his Hebraic grammar that in Hebrew there are six vowels "aleph, he, vav, heth, iod, ain" close to the usual Masoretic vowel-points. (The French erudite Fabre d'Olivet also explained in his Hebrew grammar the following equivalence: aleph = â, he = è, heth = é, waw = ô/ u, yod = î, aïn = wo).
Raymond Martini, a Spanish monk, excellent Hebrew scholar, and a very good connoisseur of Talmud, impressed by the arguments of Maimonides, was involved in controversy with the Jews in his book Pugio fidei in 1278 on the fact that God's name could be pronounced; he used the form Yohoua. However, in 1292, his pupil Arnauldus of Villenueva, keen on Cabal, returned to the dumb (speechless) form of IHVH. On the other hand, Porchetus de Salvaticis, an admirer of Raymond Martini, enriched his arguments and used several times the form Yohouah in his book Victoria Porcheti adversus impios Hebraeos in 1303. However, the convert Abner of Burgos used (between 1330 and 1340) the form Yehabe in his book Mostrador de Justicia. Another convert, Pablo of Burgos preferred the dumb structure YHBH (in 1390).
The first scholar who gave exactly and clearly the reasons of his choices of vocalization was cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. In 1428, he dedicated moreover his first sermon on John 1:1 in which he explained, based on rabbi Moyses's works, the various names of God (Adonai, Jah, Sabaoth, Schaddai, etc.) and the meaning of the Tetragram, which he vocalized Iehoua. In this sermon, he began to develop the idea that Jesus was the "speakable" element (the Word) of the "unspeakable (ineffable)" God. He explained in another sermon, written around 1440, that the name of Jesus means "savior," pronounced Ihesua in Hebrew, and this name "Savior" is also the Word of God. He indicated that the unspeakable name is Ihehoua in Hebrew.
In two other sermons, written in 1441, he pursued the connection between the unspeakable Greek Tetragram, spelled Iot, He, Vau, He, and the "speakable" name of Ihesus which he often wrote Ihûs. Then, in a sermon written in 1445, he explained in detail the grammatical reasons permitting a link between these two names. God's name is the Greek Tetragram which is spelled in Hebrew Ioth, He, Vau, He; these four letters serve as vowels, corresponding to I, E, O, A in Greek because in this language there is no specific vowel for the sound OU (the letter U in Greek is pronounced as the French Ü). So, in Greek, the transcription IEOUA would be more exact and would better reflect the OU sound of the Hebrew name I-e-ou-a, becoming in Latin Iehova or Ihehova, because the letter H is inaudible and the vowel U also serves as a consonant (V).
He noted finally that the Hebraic form IESUA of the name "Jesus" is distinguished from the divine name only by a holy letter "s" (shin in Hebrew) which is interpreted as the "elocution" or the Word of God, also the salvation of God. He would continue this parallel between God's name (Ieoua) and the name of Jesus (Iesoua) in yet another sermon. However, towards the end of his life, he wrote several important works (De Possest in 1460, Non Aliud in 1462, etc.), to explain the purely symbolic character of God's name which had all names and so none in particular. Contrary to his books, his sermons were not widely diffused.
In 1474, Marsilio Ficino proposed the name Hiehouahi in his book De Liber Christiana Religione XXX. Johannes Wessel Gansfort, the spiritual father of Luther, preferred, around 1480, to vocalize God's name Iohauah in his work Oratione III:3:11-12. However, once more, the influence of the Christian Cabal engendered a big mess in the vocalization of God's name under the excuse of making improvements!
For example, by 1488, Paulus de Heredia suggested in his Epistle of Secrets vocalizing the Tetragram in Yehauue because its presumed Hebraic meaning was, according to him, "He will make be" or "He will generate" (future piel of the verb to be). John Reuchlin proposed in 1494 in his De Verbo Mirifico to move closer to the Latin Tetragram IHVH towards the name of Jesus which he presumed to be written IHSVH (the link with the Greek name Iesue which he supported supposes Ieue as the vocalization of God's name). John Pico della Mirandola in his Disputianum Adversus Astrologos (in 1496) fustigated the heathens who used the name Jupiter for plagiarizing God's name (Jove father). Friend of Mirandole, Agostino Justiniani clarified in 1516 in his translation of the Psalms that the Tetragram was pronounced as Jova (or Ioua).
Go to part 2:
President, Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits
September 2003
God's name, which one finds about 7000 times in the Bible under the form YHWH, possesses the unique and remarkable circumstance of not having been vocalized by nearly all translators. With this name being unpronounceable under its written form YHWH, some overconfident (or overzealous?) translators refused to confirm this paradox and preferred to vocalize it with an approximated form. Obviously, in every case, the proposed vocalizations were very rigorously criticized. A review of the past twenty centuries will allow us to appreciate the reasonings which favored or opposed the vocalization of God's name and to understand the origin of the controversy and the paradox of a name which can be written without being able to read it aloud.
BEFORE OUR COMMON ERA
The first translation of the Bible, called the Septuagint, was made by Jews at the beginning of the third century before our era. However, out of superstitious respect, these translators preferred to keep the Tetragram YHWH written in Hebrew within the Greek text. There was, however, one exception: a Jewish translator who preferred to insert it under the vocalized form Iaô (Iaw), which became well known at this time because the historians Varro and Diodorus Siculus quoted it in their books (History I:94:2; Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum). In spite of these precise testimonies, the form of Iaô found limited use and was very often slandered: a paradox of magnitudes. The great prophet Jeremiah explained that the objective of the false prophets was to cause people to forget the Name (Jr 23:27), an attempt nevertheless dedicated to be defeated (Ps 44:20; 21) because God reserves his Name for his servants (Is 52:6) and naturally for those who appreciate it (Mal 3:16). Abraham, who is the father of those who have faith, took pleasure in proclaiming this Name according to Genesis 12:8 and initiated a respectable biblical custom.
Furthermore, according to the prophet Joel, it is even obligatory to proclaim this Name in order to be saved during the great and formidable day of God (Jl 2:32). According to Exodus 23:13, refusal to pronounce a god's name is a refusal to worship the god in question, so refusal to pronounce the True God's name means a refusal to worship him (Jos 23:7). In spite of these exactitudes, the translators of the Septuagint self-justified their choice not to vocalize the Name, even going so far as to modify the verses of Leviticus 24:15, transforming them into : "(Š) a man who will curse God will bring the offence, but in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely, the entire assembly of Israel should stone him with stones; the alien resident as the native, in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely."
Paradoxically, as noted by Philo, a Jewish philosopher of the first century, to name God was worse than to curse him (De Vita Mosis II:203-206). The Talmud points out that they had started to remove these names (Yah, Yahu) that had been stamped on jars in order to protect their holiness ('Arakin 6a; Shabbat 61b). Out of respect, the Name was to be avoided in conversation, as proven by these remarks from Jewish books written in the second century BCE: "Do not accustom into the habit of naming the Holy One" and "someone who is continually swearing and uttering the Name will not be exempt from sin" (Si 23:9,10). It was held that the privilege of pronouncing the Name was strictly reserved for use inside the Temple (Si 50:20) and that it should not be communicated to foreigners (Ws 14:21).
FROM FIRST TO FIFTH CENTURY
Flavius Josephus, who understood the priesthood of this time very well, made it clear that at the time the Romans attacked the Temple the Jews called upon the fear-inspiring name of God (The Jewish War V:43 . He wrote he had no right to reveal this name to his reader (Jewish Antiquities II:275); however, he did give information of primary importance on the very pronunciation he wanted to conceal. However, in his work The Jewish War V:235, he stated: "The high priest had his head dressed with a tiara of fine linen embroidered with a purple border, and surrounded by another crown in gold which had in relief the sacred letters; these ones are four vowels." This description is excellent; moreover, it completes the one found in Exodus 28:36-39. However, as we know, there are no vowels in Hebrew but only consonants.
Regrettably, instead of explaining this apparent abnormality, certain commentators (influenced by the form Yahweh) mislead the readers of Josephus by indicating in a note that this reading was IAUE. Now, it is obvious that the "sacred letters" indicated the Tetragram written in paleo-Hebrew, not Greek. Furthermore, in Hebrew these consonants, Y, W, and H, do serve as vowels; they are, in fact, called "mothers of reading" (matres lectionis). The writings of Qumrân show that in the first century Y used as a vowel served only to indicate the sounds I and É, W served only for the sounds Ô and U, and a final H served for the sound A. These equivalences may be verified in thousands of words.
Additionally, the H was used as a vowel only at the end of words, never within them. So, to read the name YHWH as four vowels would be IHUA, that is IEUA, because between two vowels the H is heard as a slight E. Eusebius quoted a writer of great antiquity (before 1200 BCE?) called Sanchuniathon who spoke about the Jews in chapter four of his work entitled Phoenician History. Philo of Byblos translated this work into Greek at the beginning of our era, and Porphyry was familiar with it. Sanchuniathon maintained that he got his information from Ieroubal the priest of IÉÜÔ (Ieuw), that is the Jerubbaal found in Judges 7:1. According to Judges 7:1, Jerubbaal was the name of Judge Gideon who was a priest of Jehovah (Jg 6:26; 8:27), probably written IÉÜÔA (Ieuwa) in Greek.
Irenaeus of Lyons believed that the word IAÔ (Iaw in Greek, [Iah] in Latin) meant "Lord" in primitive Hebrew (Against Heresies II:24:2), and he esteemed that the use of this Hebrew word IAÔ to denote the Name of the unknown Father was intended to impress gullible minds in worship of mysteries (Against Heresies I:21:3). Furthermore, the Greek concept of an anonymous god, mainly supported by Plato, being mixed in with the Hebrew concept of the God with a personal name, engendered absolutely contradictory assertions. So, Clement of Alexandria wrote in his book (Stromateon V:34:5) that the Tetragram was pronounced Iaoue while writing and then later that God was without form and nameless (StromateonV:81:6).
In the same way, Philo a Jewish philosopher of the first century had good biblical knowledge and knew that the Tetragram was the divine name pronounced inside the temple, since he related: "there was a gold plaque shaped in a ring and bearing four engraved characters of a name which had the right to hear and to pronounce in the holy place those ones whose ears and tongue have been purified by wisdom, and nobody else and absolutely nowhere else" (De Vita Mosis II:114-132). However, in the same work, paradoxically, he explains, commenting on Exodus 3:14 from the LXX translation, that God has no name of his own (De Vita Mosis I:75).
The Christian translators (of heathen origin) not understanding Hebrew exchanged the Tetragram with Lord; Marcion in 140 C.E. even modified the expression "Let your Name be sanctified" into "Let your spirit be sanctified." On the other hand, some Christians (of Jewish origin) such as Symmachus kept the Tetragram written in Hebrew inside the Greek text (in 165). Eusebius clarified that Symmachus was an Ebionite, that is a Judeo-Christian, and that he had drafted a comment on Matthew's book (Ecclesiastical History VI:17). However, the Judeo-Christians were completely rejected after 135 of our era by the "Christians" as Jewish heretics.
Since the whole of translations were made according to the Septuagint, many readers ignored the problem of the vocalization of the Name. However, Jerome, who realized the first Latin translation directly from the Hebrew text, noted in his commentary on Psalm 8:2: "The name of the Lord in Hebrew has four letters, Yod He Waw He, which is the proper name of God which some people through ignorance, write P I P I (instead of h w h y) in Greek and which can be pronounced Yaho." Augustine of Hippo wrote around 400 that "Varro was rightly writing that the Jews worship the god Jupiter" (De consensu evangelistarum I:22). His remark proves that he probably confused the name of Jupiter (Ioue) with the Hebrew name of God Iaô, or perhaps Ioua.
FROM SIXTH TO ELEVENTH CENTURY
Some oriental Christians, due to their knowledge of the Hebraic language, prevented a complete disappearance of the name. Thus, Severi of Antioch used the form IÔA (Iwa) in a series of comments in chapter eight of John's gospel (Jn 8:5 , pointing out that it was God's name in Hebrew, a name that one finds also in the front pages of a codex of 6th century (Coislinianus) to assign the Invisible or the Unspeakable. It is interesting to note that Matthew's gospel in Hebrew was found in a work dated from the 6th to the 9th centuries (Nestor's book) and was attributed to the priest Nestorius, in which God's name appears under the Hebraic shape "The Name" (Hashem) instead of the usual "Lord." In commenting on a work of Severi of Antioch, the famous scholar James of Edesse made clear around 675 in a technical comment that the copyists of the Septuagint (of his time) were divided over whether to write the divine name Adonay and keep it within the Greek text in the form P I P I (corresponding in fact to the Hebrew name YHYH as he mentioned) or to translate it as Kurios and write it in the margin of the manuscript.
These quotations are exceptional, however, because even the famous translator Albinus Alcuini specified that although God's name was written Jod He Vau Heth, it was read Lord because this name was ineffable. Things began to change when translators again made translations directly from Hebrew and not from a translation. The first was doubtless the famous Karaite Yefet ben Eli who translated the Bible into Arabic. In copies of this translation (made around 960), one finds at times the Tetragram vocalized Yahwah (or Yahuwah), a normal transcription of the Hebrew shape Yehwah of this time (or Yahowah whom one finds in some codices within Babylonian punctuation) because in Arabic there are only three sounds: â, î, and û. The shape Yahuwah was apparently understood Yah Huwa "Oh He" in Arabic because it seems so in a manuscript dated 10th century.
Some famous imams, such as Abu-l-Qâsim-al-Junayd who died in 910 and now known as Fahr ad-Din Râzî, while knowing that God had 99 beautiful names explained that the supreme name (ism-al-a'zam) of God was Yâ Huwa not Allah. A follower of al-Junayd, the Soufi Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallâj (857-922), asserted: "Here are the words of which sense seemed ambiguous. Know that temples hold by His Yâ-Huwah and that bodies are being moved by His Yâ-Sîn. Now Hû and Sîn are two roads which end into the knowledge of the original point." Yâ-Sîn is a reference to the Sura 36 and Yâ-huwah wrote y'hwh in Arabic and makes reference to the Hebrew Tetragram. Al-Hallâj was rejected as a madman by his teacher al-Junayd and was executed in Bagdad as a heretic.
IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
The works of two Jewish scholars marked a decisive bend in the vocalization of God's name. In order to contend with influences of philosophy, Gnosticism, mystical, and even astrological beliefs which became increasingly influential [mainly due to the third century work entitled Sepher Yetsirah (Book of Forming) which speculated on the letters of the divine names], Maimonides, a Jewish scholar and famous talmudist, put forward a whole new definition of Judaism. His reasoning centered on the Name of God, the Tetragram, which was explained in his book entitled The Guide of the Perplexed, written in 1190. There he exposed the following powerful reasoning: the God of the philosophers did not require worship only polite acknowledgement of his existence since it would be impossible to establish relations with a nameless God (Elohim).
Then he proved that the Tetragram YHWH is the personal name of God, that is to say the name distinctly read (Shem hamephorash), which is different from all the other names such as Adonay, Shadday, Elohim (which are only divine titles having an etymology) because the Tetragram has no etymology. Maimonides knew well the problem of the pronunciation since Jewish tradition stated that it had been lost. On the other hand, he also knew that some Jews believed in the almost magical influence of the letters or the precise pronunciation of divine names, but he warned his readers against such practices as being pure invention or foolishness. The remarkable aspect of his argumentation lies in the fact that he managed to avoid controversy on such a sensitive subject.
He asserted that in fact it was only true worship which had been lost and not the authentic pronunciation of the Tetragram, since this was still possible according to its letters. To support this basic idea (true worship is more important than correct pronunciation), he quoted Sotah 38a to prove that the name is the essence of God and that is the reason it should not be misused; then he quoted Zechariah 14:9 to prove the oneness of this name and also Sifre Numbers 6:23-27 to show that the priests were obliged to bless by this name only. Then, to prove that pronunciation of the Name did not pose any problem in the past and that it had no magical aspect, he quoted Qiddushin 71a, which said that this name was passed on by certain rabbis to their sons.
Also, according to Yoma 39b, this pronunciation was widely used before the priesthood of Simon the Just, so proving the insignificance of a magical concept; at this time, the Name was used for its spiritual, not supernatural, aspect. Maimonides insisted on the fact that what was necessary to find was the spirituality connected to this Name and not the exact pronunciation. In order to demonstrate this important idea of understanding the sense and not the sound conveyed by this name, he quoted a relevant example. Exodus 6:3 indicates that before Moses the Name was not known. Naturally, this refers to the exact meaning of the Name and not its pronunciation because it would be unreasonable to believe that a correct pronunciation would have suddenly been able to incite the Israelites to action unless the pronunciation had magical power, a supposition disproved by subsequent events.
It is interesting to observe that Judah Halevi, another Jewish scholar, put forward almost the same arguments in his book The Kuzari published some years before in 1140. He wrote that the main difference between the God of Abraham and the God of Aristotle was the Tetragram. He proved also that this name was the personal name of God and that it meant "He will be with you." To show once again that it was the meaning of this name which was important and not the pronunciation, he quoted Exodus 5:2 where Pharaoh asked to know the Name, not the pronunciation which he used, and the authority of this Name. He pointed out that the letters of the Tetragram have the remarkable property of being matres lectionis, that is the vowels associated with other consonants, much as the spirit is associated with the body and makes it live (Kuzari IV:1-16). Judah Halevi specified in his work that the yod (Y) served as vowel I, the waw (W) served as O, and that the he (H) and the aleph (') served as A. According to these rudimentary indications, the name YHWH could be read I-H-O-A "according to its letters" (H is never used as vowel inside words; in that exceptional case, the letter aleph is preferred). A French erudite, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, explained that the best pronunciation of the divine Name according to its letters was Ihôah, and when he began to translate the Bible (Genesis, chapters I to X), he systematically used the name Ihôah.
The expression pronounced "according to its letters" which Maimonides used is strictly exact, only in Hebrew (vowel letters as pointed out by Judah Halevi). Joachim of Flora gave a Greek transliteration of the Tetragram I-E-U-E in his work entitled Expositio in Apocalypsim that he finished in 1195. He also used the expression "Adonay IEUE tetragramaton nomen" in another book entitled Liber Figurarum. The vocalization of the Tetragram was improved by Pope Innocent III in one of his sermons written around 1200. Indeed, he noticed that the Hebrew letters of the Tetragram Ioth, Eth, Vau (that is Y, H, W) were used as vowels and that the name IESUS had exactly the same vowels I, E, and U as the divine name. He also drew a parallel between the name written IEVE, pronounced Adonai, and the name written IHS but pronounced IESUS. These remarks on the Name concerned only a circle very restricted by medieval intellectuals.
Furthermore, Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) did not make known in the Catholic world that God's name was Ieue and not Lord; the Hebrew scholar Judah Hallevi (1075-1141) did not denounce the Jewish superstition to replace the name Ihôa by the substitute Adonay; the Soufi al-Hallâj (857-922) did not reveal in the Moslem world that Yâhuwa was the proper noun of Allah, etc.
FROM THIRTEEN TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From the thirteenth century, knowledge of the Hebrew language would progress considerably, involving notably the role of matres lectionis. For example, the famous scholar Roger Bacon wrote in his Hebraic grammar that in Hebrew there are six vowels "aleph, he, vav, heth, iod, ain" close to the usual Masoretic vowel-points. (The French erudite Fabre d'Olivet also explained in his Hebrew grammar the following equivalence: aleph = â, he = è, heth = é, waw = ô/ u, yod = î, aïn = wo).
Raymond Martini, a Spanish monk, excellent Hebrew scholar, and a very good connoisseur of Talmud, impressed by the arguments of Maimonides, was involved in controversy with the Jews in his book Pugio fidei in 1278 on the fact that God's name could be pronounced; he used the form Yohoua. However, in 1292, his pupil Arnauldus of Villenueva, keen on Cabal, returned to the dumb (speechless) form of IHVH. On the other hand, Porchetus de Salvaticis, an admirer of Raymond Martini, enriched his arguments and used several times the form Yohouah in his book Victoria Porcheti adversus impios Hebraeos in 1303. However, the convert Abner of Burgos used (between 1330 and 1340) the form Yehabe in his book Mostrador de Justicia. Another convert, Pablo of Burgos preferred the dumb structure YHBH (in 1390).
The first scholar who gave exactly and clearly the reasons of his choices of vocalization was cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. In 1428, he dedicated moreover his first sermon on John 1:1 in which he explained, based on rabbi Moyses's works, the various names of God (Adonai, Jah, Sabaoth, Schaddai, etc.) and the meaning of the Tetragram, which he vocalized Iehoua. In this sermon, he began to develop the idea that Jesus was the "speakable" element (the Word) of the "unspeakable (ineffable)" God. He explained in another sermon, written around 1440, that the name of Jesus means "savior," pronounced Ihesua in Hebrew, and this name "Savior" is also the Word of God. He indicated that the unspeakable name is Ihehoua in Hebrew.
In two other sermons, written in 1441, he pursued the connection between the unspeakable Greek Tetragram, spelled Iot, He, Vau, He, and the "speakable" name of Ihesus which he often wrote Ihûs. Then, in a sermon written in 1445, he explained in detail the grammatical reasons permitting a link between these two names. God's name is the Greek Tetragram which is spelled in Hebrew Ioth, He, Vau, He; these four letters serve as vowels, corresponding to I, E, O, A in Greek because in this language there is no specific vowel for the sound OU (the letter U in Greek is pronounced as the French Ü). So, in Greek, the transcription IEOUA would be more exact and would better reflect the OU sound of the Hebrew name I-e-ou-a, becoming in Latin Iehova or Ihehova, because the letter H is inaudible and the vowel U also serves as a consonant (V).
He noted finally that the Hebraic form IESUA of the name "Jesus" is distinguished from the divine name only by a holy letter "s" (shin in Hebrew) which is interpreted as the "elocution" or the Word of God, also the salvation of God. He would continue this parallel between God's name (Ieoua) and the name of Jesus (Iesoua) in yet another sermon. However, towards the end of his life, he wrote several important works (De Possest in 1460, Non Aliud in 1462, etc.), to explain the purely symbolic character of God's name which had all names and so none in particular. Contrary to his books, his sermons were not widely diffused.
In 1474, Marsilio Ficino proposed the name Hiehouahi in his book De Liber Christiana Religione XXX. Johannes Wessel Gansfort, the spiritual father of Luther, preferred, around 1480, to vocalize God's name Iohauah in his work Oratione III:3:11-12. However, once more, the influence of the Christian Cabal engendered a big mess in the vocalization of God's name under the excuse of making improvements!
For example, by 1488, Paulus de Heredia suggested in his Epistle of Secrets vocalizing the Tetragram in Yehauue because its presumed Hebraic meaning was, according to him, "He will make be" or "He will generate" (future piel of the verb to be). John Reuchlin proposed in 1494 in his De Verbo Mirifico to move closer to the Latin Tetragram IHVH towards the name of Jesus which he presumed to be written IHSVH (the link with the Greek name Iesue which he supported supposes Ieue as the vocalization of God's name). John Pico della Mirandola in his Disputianum Adversus Astrologos (in 1496) fustigated the heathens who used the name Jupiter for plagiarizing God's name (Jove father). Friend of Mirandole, Agostino Justiniani clarified in 1516 in his translation of the Psalms that the Tetragram was pronounced as Jova (or Ioua).
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