Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2007 7:16:18 GMT -5
Interesting article on the Hebrews and the invention of vowels in the Jerusalem Post -
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257208242&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
THE MAGIC VOWEL LETTERS
Genesis 17 tells of a covenant between God and a man, Abram, whose name is spelled ?BRM. (Again, the question mark represents an alef, used for a glottal stop.) The ancient word ?B means "father," and, as we saw, RM means "exalted." ?BRM was the "exalted father," or "tribal elder."
When ?BRM enters into a covenant with his God, he gets a heh inserted in the middle of his name: ?BRM becomes ?BRHM. That is, Abram becomes Abraham.
Regardless of the historical accuracy or divinity of the story - and here, obviously, well-meaning people disagree - it is clear to all that it is the special heh, one of three letters that completed the alphabet, that gets added to ?BRM to create ?BRHM. His wife, too, gets a heh added to her name: Sarai becomes Sarah.
The Hebrews didn't stop there. As we saw above, the ancient Canaanite word for "god" was el, spelled ?L, and the word for "gods," therefore, was elim, spelled in Phoenician ?LM and in Hebrew ?LYM. The Hebrews took this common Canaanite word and added a heh right in the middle to create one of God's names: ?LHYM.
In short, the patriarch, matriarch, and deity of the Hebrews all get their names by adding a heh to convert otherwise common words into special ones. The Hebrews used their vowel-letters not just to make writing possible, but to create their most important names.
In addition to ?LHYM, we find a second, four-letter name for God, the tetragrammaton (which means "four-letters" in Greek). The four letters are yud, heh, vav, heh. Common pronunciations such as "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" miss the point. What really matters here is the remarkable fact that this name consists entirely of the Hebrews' newly invented vowel letters, each included once, with the particularly special heh repeated.
The tetragrammaton is unique in ancient Hebrew, in that its pronunciation seems divorced from its spelling. It also seems to lack any plausible etymology, and is unattested in similar ancient languages. Now we know why. The Hebrews paid homage to the vowel letters that made it possible to spread the Word of God by using those letters to refer to God.
IN SUM, the Hebrews modified the Phoenicians' system by using three letters both as consonants and as vowels. They thus gave the world the alphabet. Then they used one of their vowels to create the names of their progenitors and their God. They used a combination of all three letters to create what would become the most important way of writing God's name.
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257208242&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
THE MAGIC VOWEL LETTERS
Genesis 17 tells of a covenant between God and a man, Abram, whose name is spelled ?BRM. (Again, the question mark represents an alef, used for a glottal stop.) The ancient word ?B means "father," and, as we saw, RM means "exalted." ?BRM was the "exalted father," or "tribal elder."
When ?BRM enters into a covenant with his God, he gets a heh inserted in the middle of his name: ?BRM becomes ?BRHM. That is, Abram becomes Abraham.
Regardless of the historical accuracy or divinity of the story - and here, obviously, well-meaning people disagree - it is clear to all that it is the special heh, one of three letters that completed the alphabet, that gets added to ?BRM to create ?BRHM. His wife, too, gets a heh added to her name: Sarai becomes Sarah.
The Hebrews didn't stop there. As we saw above, the ancient Canaanite word for "god" was el, spelled ?L, and the word for "gods," therefore, was elim, spelled in Phoenician ?LM and in Hebrew ?LYM. The Hebrews took this common Canaanite word and added a heh right in the middle to create one of God's names: ?LHYM.
In short, the patriarch, matriarch, and deity of the Hebrews all get their names by adding a heh to convert otherwise common words into special ones. The Hebrews used their vowel-letters not just to make writing possible, but to create their most important names.
In addition to ?LHYM, we find a second, four-letter name for God, the tetragrammaton (which means "four-letters" in Greek). The four letters are yud, heh, vav, heh. Common pronunciations such as "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" miss the point. What really matters here is the remarkable fact that this name consists entirely of the Hebrews' newly invented vowel letters, each included once, with the particularly special heh repeated.
The tetragrammaton is unique in ancient Hebrew, in that its pronunciation seems divorced from its spelling. It also seems to lack any plausible etymology, and is unattested in similar ancient languages. Now we know why. The Hebrews paid homage to the vowel letters that made it possible to spread the Word of God by using those letters to refer to God.
IN SUM, the Hebrews modified the Phoenicians' system by using three letters both as consonants and as vowels. They thus gave the world the alphabet. Then they used one of their vowels to create the names of their progenitors and their God. They used a combination of all three letters to create what would become the most important way of writing God's name.