User talk:Seeker02421

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Tetragrammaton

Is this original material, or are you reporting on research already existing? If original material, you'll eventually have the VfD crew come down on you; look at Original_research. — Bill 12:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I will spend some time reading the Wikipedia article:Wikipedia:No original research.

Seeker02421

Cleanup

Greetings! Did you just mean to remove the cleanup tag from an article? You blanked the cleanup template itself, which removed it from all articles. I have restored it. If you meant to remove it from an article, you should go back and edit the article and remove {{Cleanup-date|{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} from the text. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 19:05, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I apologize. I only meant to remove the cleanup tag from a particular article.

Seeker02421 20:51, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No harm done; it's been put back and now you know how to take it off an article. :-) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:29, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Iaoue

Great work on the Iaoue page! Yahnatan 15:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Jehovah

Hi, Seeker02421. Comments such as your Conclusion section belong on the Talk page, not on the article itself. The tags you placed on the article are enough to alert other editors about possible problems with the reliability of the article. Thanks. - Tangotango 11:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

GGWO

Just out of interest, are we going for an International English, or American English in GGWO? The spelling errors you corrected were International is all - I was wondering which one you thought was best? HawkerTyphoon 13:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

HawkerTyphoon,

I post from the United States.

I generally check with my old 1948 Webster's Dictionatry,

or I use the spellcheck built into my Microsoft Works Word Processor.

Both sources give English (United States) spellings.

Does Wikipedia have any rules on this issue?

Seeker02421 14:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Translation

I see that you changed a heading in the Yahweh article to have "translation". But that is incorrect - I suppose I'll revert it later. Translation is done between languages to preserve meaning: the translation of French "maison" is English "house". But transcription, or transliteration, is writing a foreign word in another alphabet, without regard to the meaning that word might have. A former Russian president was called Хрущёв, Khrushchev, or Khrushchov, in English transliteration. I do not know whether his name has a meaning, or what that meaning might be.

I changed "translation" to "transcription"

Seeker02421 11:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I/J and U/V

I see that you stress the difference between u and v, and between i and j. Maybe that is not appropriate, anachronistic. In the Middle Ages I and J were the same symbol, and U and V were the same symbol - we would call it a matter of font choice. If a text has only I and never J, then it is wrong to suggest that there is an opposition ("Jehovah", actually "Iehoua"). If I write a digit 1, there may or may not be a small stroke left from the top - but there is no difference in meaning, only a difference in shape.

(Your remark is correct, however, since there is that final h to make a difference, even if i/j and u/v do not.)

User # 62 163 47 52

By any chance are you Edward Andrews who recently posted on YHWHgroup?

No, I am not.

I believe that I am correct to say that "Jehovah" in German and "Jehovah" in English are pronounced differently.

Yes.

Since James Strong transliterates יְהֹוָה‎‎ into English as "Yehovah", it appears as if James Strong believes that "Yehovah" not "Jehovah" is the correct Hebrew to English transliteration/transcription of יְהֹוָה‎‎.

I definitely am trying to call attention to the possibility that "Iehoua" and "Iehouah" and "Iehovah" may all have been pronounced with an initial modern "Y" sound in the rough years 1518 A.D. to the early to mid 1700's

Yes, sure. Hebrew, Latin, German do not have the sound represented by current English j. If you are talking phonetics then j is certainly inappropriate in English, and y is better.

But.

I am unhappy with your appeal to authorities. It shows that you do not consider yourself an authority, and consequently that your texts may not be authoritative. For example, a terrible fragment of the Yahweh article is the subsection headed "Professor Anson F. Rainey". That is not scientific or encyclopedic style.

Next, do not confuse transcription with pronunciation. The capital of China has a name that today is written "Beijing", earlier "Peking". The pronunciation has not changed. In "Xhosa", the sound transcribed by X is a click. There are no clicks in the English alphabet and one picks some arbitrary character. How does one transcribe sin and samekh? tet and tav? Not enough letters in the alphabet - just pick something reasonable, choose from the many existing conventions or introduce a new one. The purpose of transcription is just to simplify handling foreign language material. Not to teach pronunciation.

There is no such thing as "the correct transcription".

Certainly Galatinus's "Iehoua" was very likely to have been pronounced "Yehoua" in 1518 A.D. [NOTE! Gerard Gertoux believes that Galatinus's "Iehoua" was pronounced "Yehua" ]

Such statements are hardly meaningful. Try to discuss in such terms the pronunciation of French or German words and you'll find very quickly that it is impossible.

Also, such statements are uninteresting. If the goal is to answer the question "how should Gods name be pronounced" then it doesnt matter what Galatinus did - he does not have more information than we do. And one's pronunciation of "Iehoua" of course depends on what country one was born in.

I have not checked for several years, but I believe that if you check the first letter "I" page in most any old Encyclopedia, it will state that the 16th-17th English letter "I" was pronounce like a modern English letter "Y" not like a modern English letter "J".

Carl Franklin convinced me that Tyndales 1530 A.D. letter "u" represented a modern English letter "v".

Too simplistic.

I hope you continue to edit the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh.

Hmm. That seems to be an independent discussion. Let me start a different heading.

Seeker02421 12:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

User # 62 163 47 52

You wrote:

"I am unhappy with your appeal to authorities. It shows that you do not consider yourself an authority, and consequently that your texts may not be authoritative."

If I was an authority I would not be allowed to post here. Wikipedia does not allow "personal research". Wikipedia wants all coments to be verifiable. All editors are supposed to back up their edits by referencing an acceptable source such as "The Encyclopedia Britannica of 1611, or the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906, or the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, or Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible". These four sources are in the public domain and can be freely quoted on Wikipedia.

The quote of Professor Rainey is definitely questionable, because I did not obtain permission. Professor Rainey comments are not in the public domain, and I don't think that they have received peer review.

Wikipedia policy is "Verifiability not truth". Wikipedia is not responsible for guarenteeing that what is posted here is "TRUE". However Wikipedia does hope that what is posted here is "verifiable" [e.g. it has been posted on some public domain scholarly source]

James Strong's Concordance has a transliteration table. According to James Strong's transliteration table Yehovah [with a superscripted "e" is an accurate transliteration of יְהֹוָה‎‎

‎

Wikipedia is not concerned with whether or not "Yehovah" is a correct transliteration by somebody elses definition.

To be redundant Wikipedia policy is "verifiability not truth"

James Strong's Concordance of 1890 is a scholarly source in the public domain. Wikipedia is not interested in the fact that the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, another scholarly source in the public domain disagrees with James Strong.

Wikipedia policy is "verifiability not truth"

Seeker02421 01:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

(Let me go back a little to avoid deep indents.)

We disagree. The scientific method does not consist of quoting random books and declaring that some random information is found some random place. One would like to have a readable piece of proza that describes the current point or points of view and adds in footnotes or references enough material so that a reader can check for himself. Not "Professor Jan Derksen from Hawaii University claims that Brussels is the capital of Belgium", but "Brussels is the capital of Belgium [ref: CIA factbook]".

We also disagree in a different way. Before a statement can be verifiable, it must be meaningful. For example, statements about the correct transliteration are not meaningful - transliterations are done by convention, that means that there are thousands of impeccable ways of transliterating a word written in one alphabet into some other alphabet.

Thus, you may think that two sources disagree because they use different transliterations while the authors themselves are unable to see any disagreement. One and the same author may use different transliterations for the same word on the same day in two different papers.

One has to be expert to write about a subject. Not to put original research in an article, but to understand the terminology and to understand the facts one describes.

One also needs to be an expert to know what the general consensus is. The general consensus is what is described in every standard textbook. Few if any references are needed. On the other hand, when things are controversial, more explicit references are needed that support the various points of view. There is no need to quote sources for what is found in every single textbook on Hebrew.

Merge?

The articles Tetragrammaton and Yahweh contain almost the same material. Is there a reason why they are not merged?

User # 62 163 47 52

I would not like to see the article "Tetragrammaton" and and the article "Yahweh" merged, and I don't believe the editors of the article "Tetragrammaton" want such a merger.

However I would like to see Section #12 through Section #14 of Wikipedia Article:Yahweh deleted. For all practical purposes those sections are taken verbatim from the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911.

However Wikipedia moderators are watching what happens on this article.

Wikipedia moderators might not allow a large deletion of this article to take place unless a consensus had been reached on Wikipedia: Talk:Yahweh.

I would like to see the name of this article changed to "Jehovah" versus "Yahweh" or something similar. But changes like this require consensus, or Wikipedia moderators or other persons who are editing this article may be very unhappy.

The foundation of this Wikipedia Article:Yahweh is chaos. Two editors had to be banned by Wikipedia moderators before this article could come into existance. The reason why this article is based on the Encyclopedia Btitannica of 1911 Article Jehovah (Yahweh) is because some editor [in the middle of previous chaos] started a new article named "Yahweh" and cut and pasted the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 Article Jehovah (Yahweh) into it, and either walked away or was banned.

Seeker02421 01:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain why you would not want a merger?

User # 62 163 47 52,

You previously wrote:

One also needs to be an expert to know what the general consensus is. The general consensus is what is described in every standard textbook. Few if any references are needed. On the other hand, when things are controversial, more explicit references are needed that support the various points of view. There is no need to quote sources for what is found in every single textbook on Hebrew.

I assume you are saying that the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh does not need to exist because there is close to a 100% consensus among Hebrew scholars that the Masoretes did not place the actual vowel points of God's name in "Yehovah". And there is something resembling a consensus among scholarly sources that God's name might be "Yahweh"

In spite of this FACT, English speaking Bible believing Christians disagree with other English speaking Bible believing Christians concerning both the name "(Y)Jehovah and the name "Yahweh"

In my opinion the first 11 sections of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh tries to present all the evidence that exists that indicates that God's name is not "(Y)Jehovah while at the same time presenting that small amount of evidence that exists that indicates that it is at least possible that God's name may actually be "(Y)Jehovah.

KJVO Christians insist that God's name is "Jehovah" in spite of the scholarly evidence that exists to the contrary.

Gerard Gertoux has written a 328 page book trying to prove to scholars that "(Y)Jehowah" is more likely to be God's actual name than "Yahweh" is. The feedback that Gerard Gertoux has received leads him to believe, in his own mind, that he has been successful.

The present Wikipedia Article:Yahweh attempts to present as much information as possible [pro and con] concerning the "Yahweh" / "Jehovah" controversy that exists in Christianity.

User # 62 163 47 52,

Are you Garth?

Seeker02421 02:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

(Again jumping back in indentation)

No, I am not Garth - you don't know me, I suppose.

In my note earlier I meant just what I said, nothing more. You may also be mistaken about the scholarly consensus - the standard choice Yahweh may the the best of all choices, but the support is not strong at all, and one can completely reasonably have various other conjectures.

But you did not answer the question. What objections do exist against merging?

User # 62 163 47 52,

I assume that if you were to post on Wikipedia:Talk:Tetragrammaton, that AnonMoos would let you know that he would not be interested in such a merger. It is my opinion, that at a minimum, you would have to get his approval to have any hope of merging "Yahweh" with "Tetragrammaton".

Seeker02421 03:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

But you started saying that you would not like to see these articles merged. What is your reason?

User # 62 163 47 52,

At this particular moment in time I can think of no reason why these two articles should be merged.

Could you possibly give me the step by step process that will take place, as editors from two separate articles (hopefully) attempt to work together to make one superior article, out of two inferior articles.

I see no evidence of any consensus of the editors of each individual article, to attempt a merger.

Seeker02421 21:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

First of all, let me give my view of a good encyclopedia, since our views seem to differ. For me the aim is to have information one and only one place, with links everywhere else. Duplication is bad for the reader, he does not want to read everything twice, and for the editor, he does not want to edit everything twice. Duplication is also bad since it forces the reader to read more than he wants. For example, if I read the Iabe article, I want to read about that form, not about the Samaritans, since I already know all about them. Or perhaps I don't, but then I follow the link to the Samaritans article. In a similar way, the Yahweh article is long and messy, and one of the reasons is that there are long sections about some people in the 17th century that wrote about the topic. My aim "one and only one place" means that such sections must not be thrown away - information must not be lost - but must get their own place. The fragment about Louis Cappel must be an article on its own, there must be a reference to it in the article Cappel_family, and a redirect Capellus. Now the part between quotes about him can be deleted from the Yahweh article.

There is a danger that articles become "write-only". They are being written and enlarged by their editor, but not really intended to be read by a reader. A reader prefers short and clear texts, not interminable stories full of obscure details.

Verifiability

I spent some more time in polishing the Yahweh article. It is now 20% shorter than it was last week, and no real content was lost. But now I encounter various claims that are plainly false. For example, there is a heading "William Smith believed that (Yahweh) was represented by Epiphanius's (Iabe)", but there is no support for such a statement. He writes "supposed to be represented by" - that means that there are some that suppose this, but not necessarily Smith.

(And writing 'supposed' in italics is very bad style - it is insinuating, it is the style of people with a message, people with a POV.)

I wonder: is there somewhere a copy of the entire page from the Jehova article by Smith? He has a reasoning, and it is impossible to follow his reasoning from such small fragments as given in the notes. The fragments just suffice to conclude that the current Yahweh article is incorrect.

User # 62 163 47 52,

I have posted the entire "JEHOVAH" Article from Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible" on BibleWiki.

It can be found at the link below:

Bible Wiki Article

Hopefully I did not make any major errors in posting the text online. If something doesn't look right, ask some questions, and I'll check with the original.

Thanks for providing that exerpt from Gesenius's Hebrew Dictionary. I passed it on the Peter Kirk of b-hebrew who confirmed the accuracy of the German to English translation.

Can you confirm that Gesenius actually wrote in his Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament Scriptures:

>>>

"Those who consider that YHWH [Yehowah] was the actual pronunciation are not altogether without ground on which to defend their opinion. In this way can the abbreviated syllables YHW [Yeho] and YH [Yo], with which many proper names begin, be more satisfactorily explained."

>>>

I suppose the "Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament" is the translation of the "Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament" that was published later as "Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament". I possess a copy of the latter and provided a scan. Maybe some earlier version contained the quoted text.

If you can, can you provide the context in which Gesenius wrote those comments.

Just in passing I think that William Smith is mistaken in writing that either John Buxtorf senior or John Buxtorf's son opposed the pronunciation Jehovah. Both of the Buxfords strongly supported the accuracy of Masoretic Text, including the accuracy of the vowel points.

Since Wikipedia's policy is "Verifiability not truth", the quote of Smith stands as being verifiable, but not necessarilly true.

My opinion is that about 4-6 scholarly sources have followed the writings of William Smith, and propagated an error concerning the position taken by the Buxtorfs.

The new Wikipedia Article:Yahweh looks good.

Would you consider seeking consensus to give it a new name, that more accurately describes the content?

Would you consider seeking consensus to delete sections #10 thru #12

If you read Smith's actual comment at Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible": Yahweh supposed to have been derived from Samaritan "IaBe"

it would be more correct to have written that William Smith wrote that some unamed "others" supposed that "YaH:WeH" was represented by IaBe'

Seeker02421 15:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Truth

Many of the YHWH-related articles contain a lot of garbage. You seem not to worry and think that the policy is "verifiability, not truth". However, I suspect that you invented the latter half yourself. The policy guidelines say under Verifiability

Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources

If something is clearly incorrect, then it follows that the source was not reliable, and the material must not be included. It is no good to write "Professor Johnson claims that 11 times 13 equals 133", even if you have a reference that shows that he actually claimed this.

The purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide readers with an authoritative account of what is presently known about various subjects. Of course there will be cases of dispute, and in such cases one has to try and describe the different points of view without bias. But when something is a clear mistake, it should not be quoted.

Verifiability, not truth

At the link below you will find "Wikipedia's "Verifiability,not truth" policy on October 17, 2006.

The policy has been revised since then.

Wikipedia's Verification, not truth policy

"One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they must refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by reputable publishers. The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete and reliable encyclopedia. Editors should cite reliable sources so that their edits may be verified by readers and other editors.

"Verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is thus verifiability, not truth.

...

It is this fact-checking process that Wikipedia is not in a position to provide, which is why the no original research and verifiability policies are so important.

If the newspaper published the story, you could then include the information in your Wikipedia entry, citing the newspaper article as your source.

Sources Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. For academic subjects, the sources should preferably be peer-reviewed. Sources should also be appropriate to the claims made: outlandish claims require stronger sources.

English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in preference to foreign-language sources, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly."

The above quote was Wikipedia policy on October 17, 2006.

Revisions have been made since then.

Thus while I believe that William Smith may be in error when he says that either John Buxtorf the elder or his son opposed the name "Jehovah", the statement he made in 1863 remains verifiable. His statement may not be true, however it is verifiable.

The same is true as to whether or not Clement of Alexandria actually wrote that the Tetragrammaton is called "Iaoue".

20th century Greek scholars say he did.

However scholars from the 11th century through 1850 A.D. and even later, presented evidence that indicated that Clement of Alexandria in fact wrote "Iaou" and not "Iaoue".

Seeker02421 21:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Concerning Clemens - of course everybody copies from everybody else, and only few people consult actual sources. If you want to know what he wrote, you need to find an edition of his work. Scholars, in scholarly publications, always refer to the edition they consulted, so if there is a difference you will be referred to different editions of his work. If you are near a good library it will be straightforward to check these things.

About the link to Smith' 1863 dictionary: Thanks! However, several minor details look wrong, and as a source I would prefer to use a scan of this book instead of a retyped text.

You ask whether I want to cut away a few sections and rename the article. Maybe later. I have not yet gone through it once. A lot of material is still missing - strange enough. For example, my Hebrew Bibles tend to spell IeHVaH without the o, and a moment ago I checked the Aleppo codex, over a thousand years old, and the places that I checked do not have an o, I should say something about this.

Concerning verifiability - yes, you are right, I see that you correctly quoted some version of the Wikipedia policy. But I maintain that you read the letter but missed the spirit of this policy. Our job is to describe current consensus on a subject, possibly current controversy on that subject. Not to descibe the verifiable mistakes of some authors long ago. This description of current consensus must be verifible via references.

By the way, maybe you can delete the start of this page (or archive it or so), to keep it short.

(I just deleted a little to make adding something easier.)

User # 62 163 47 51

You wrote:

About the link to Smith' 1863 dictionary: Thanks! However, several minor details look wrong, and as a source I would prefer to use a scan of this book instead of a retyped text.

If you are willing to post your e-mail address on this Discussion Board, I will email you Hi-Resolution scans of pages 952 thru 959 of Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible"

Since each page will be about 1.2 MB each, I would have to send 8 separate emails, each one with a 1.2 MB JPEG Photo attached.

Seeker02421 23:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Borrowed a throw-away email address. Please try aebsbkrs at xs4all point nl.

User # 62 163 47 51

aebsbkrs@xs4all.nl is now accepted by Juno as a legitimate address.

Seeker02421 11:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Seeker02421 00:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Received page 952. Thanks!

Received pages 953-956. Thanks!

Received pages 957-959 and title page. Thanks!

Buxtorf

Just in passing I think that William Smith is mistaken in writing that either John Buxtorf senior or John Buxtorf's son opposed the pronunciation Jehovah. Both of the Buxfords strongly supported the accuracy of Masoretic Text, including the accuracy of the vowel points.

Hmm. I investigated a little and found three supporting references, so find no reason to doubt. But I do not understand your reasoning. If one learns Hebrew one learns about Q're - also if one believes that the vowel signs are from Ezra's times, one can still know that the vowels belong to the pronunciation Adonai.

By the way, I see that this collection by Reland is for sale (for something like $425).

By the way, I see that Drusius changed ("amended") some of the Greek forms he quoted, where later authors quoted him as if these were the original forms.

יְהֹוָה‎ ‎ occurs 44 times in the Leningrad Codex

Peter Kirk of b-hebrew lists 44 occurrences of יְהֹוָה‎ ‎ in the Leningrad Codex

Y:HOWFH - 30 (GEN 3:14; 9:26; EXO 3:2; 13:3,9,15; 14:1,8; LEV 25:17; DEU

32:9; 33:12,13; 1KI 3:5; PSA 15:1; 40:5; 47:6; 100:5; 116:5,6; PRO 1:29;

JER 2:37; 3:22,25; 4:3; 5:3,19; 6:9; 36:8; EZK 44:5; NAM 1:3)

Forms ending in Y:HOWFH - 14 (DEU 31:27; 1KI 16:33; JER 3:1,13,21; 4:8;

5:2,9,15,18,22,29; 8:13; 30:10)

Note" "Y:HOWFH" is b-hebrew's transcription of יְהֹוָה‎ ‎

Seeker02421 23:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know. (I'll check whether I was not too categorical in what I wrote in the article, but there is a very large contrast between the 6000+ later and the very few in L.)

As Peter Kirk remarks:

One [explanation] might be that, according to some reading tradition, the divine name was most commonly pronounced something like shema', but in just a very few cases 'adonay, or 'elohim:

Having checked - yes, one place I wrote "mostly", no modification needed; in the other place I added a few words.

Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon

[wrote too quickly, sorry]

Fagius

You add:

Drusius (loc. cit., 344) represents Peter Galatinus as the inventor of the word Jehovah, and Fagius as it's propagator in the world of scholars and commentators.[3]

Should I revert? I think yes, for two reasons: (i) the "(loc. cit., 344)" is incorrect, there is no loc. cit. (ii) the first half of the sentence says precisely the same as the following sentence.

So, if this is of interest, the interest would be either Fagius, or the reference. The same reference is already given later, so the reference seems not vital. That Drusius was the first to notice that "Jehova" was based on a mistaken assumption is good to know, but since him thousands of people have repeated the same statement. There seems to be no good reason to mention Fagius.

A good article is short and to the point. Fagius is very far from the point. Maybe there is also a debate here. But Fagius does not contribute to the debate.

User # 62 163 47 51

I specifically wanted to introduce the sentence:

"Drusius (loc. cit., 344) represents Peter Galatinus as the inventor of the word Jehovah, and Fagius as it's propagator in the world of scholars and commentators.",

because that sentence is being critiqued by Carl Franklin in his article:"The Name Jehovah was Invented"

I was hoping that you might take a look at Carl Franklin's article, specifically page #16.

Earlier I mentioned the name Edward Andrews who has posted questions concerning what Carl Franklin has written, on both "B-Hebrew" and "YHWHgroup". The message he has posted refers to almost all of the men that Carl Franklin mentions in his defence of the name "Jehovah". Most of these men are being discussed in this Wikipedia Article:Yahweh!

I was wondering if you might find a place in this article to mention Carl Franklin's writings.

Seeker02421 22:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Maybe today there is nobody who claims that Galatinus was the first. Even mentioning Galatinus seems rather superfluous. Drusius mentions in a certain context that G. was first and that his teachings were spread by F. I don't have his text here right now, although I did a few days ago - it is a bad habit to discuss writings in very small fragments at a time, where these fragments are from fifth hand hearsay.

You say that F. is of more interest because Carl Franklin mentions him. Indeed, CF first tries to set up a straw man, and then tries to demolish his straw man. His writings are such that I would be ashamed to quote him, positively or negatively.

You mention Edward Andrews. Googling for ["Edward Andrews" Fagius] turns op two posts. But I view that discussion as irrelevant. It no longer matters what Drusius or Cappel thought. Certain people had certain ideas, correct or incorrect, and they originated thoughts that afterwards have been discussed in hundreds of papers by hundreds of scholars. Nobody says: this must be true because Drusius says so, or because the Jewish Lexicon says so. Today there is an established consensus, reached after extensive discussions among many people.

Note how I formulated this in the article: Consensus: the reading "Jehovah" was based upon a mistake, JHWH has no vowels. Convention: JHWH is pronounced Jahweh. Convention is very different from consensus.

"Convention" means: one might reasonably propose a handful of other readings, and nobody would be able to prove that these other readings are wrong, but on the other hand nobody will be able to prove that these other readings are better than "Jahweh", so for the time being the debate is over, and "Jahweh" is one among the best readings.

You mentioned Gertoux, but I do not have his book, only a 65-page pdf file found on the web. That file does not inspire optimism. I do not think his book will influence many scholars. It has the wrong style.

Questions concerning Scott Jones' quotes of Davidson

User # 62 163 47 51

Would you have time to look at page #4 and page #5 of Scott Jones’ Article “Jehovah”?

Could you confirm whether or not Scott Jones has accurately quoted Page 171 of The Analytical Hebrew And Chaldee Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, p 171?

Seeker02421 22:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Roughly accurately, yes. On page CLXXI the ketiv for elohim is of course jehovih, not jehovah as Scott Jones writes (just before the red part). And Jones omits a silluq in the first JHWH. (I have an old edition, not the modern reprint.)

Iaoue (2)

The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iaoue ends with a Technical note. Delete?

Now that Wikipedia Articles are using the Hebrew template, that Technical note is probably no longer necessary.

In the Talk:Iaoue page I see a "Mission impossible" heading. I wonder what your personal opinion is about these things. What is the proper Name?

Those comments were written in October 2004.

I was writing to a Wikipedia moderator [e.g. Gadykosma] who was closely moderating the Iaoue article.

In December 2004 I sought help from Peter Kirk of b-hebrew, and Peter spent a lot of his own time researching the confusing (at that time) Zephyrus issue.

Peter found out that Zephyrus's Greek to Latin translation of Clement's Greek Stromata Book V. Chapter 6:34 had been written in about 1571 A.D., NOT IN THE 2ND CENTURY.

Peter's sucessful research clarified a difficult issue.

In 2004, there was incorrect information all over the internet that Zephyrus had translated "Iaoue" as "Jehovah" in the 2nd century A.D.

Peter Kirk speculates that Zephyrus translated "Iaoue" (or "Iaou") as "Iehoua" in 1571 A.D., which was later translated into English as "Jehovah" in the late 1800's, when it was published in ANF-02.

Peter Kirk does not believe that sufficient evidence exists to trust that Clement of Alexandria wrote "Iaoue" in 190 A.D.

However Peter Kirk believes that the Samaritan "IaBe" is sufficient proof for him (Peter Kirk) to believe that God's name is likely to be "YaH:WeH". Peter Kirk believes that the silent shewa under the first "Heh" in "YaH:WeH" is correct.

Seeker02421 23:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Seeker02421 00:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Since the Masoretes placed an "e" type composite shewa under the yod in "YeHoViH", it appears that the Masoretes were not troubled about placing a composite shewa under a yod, at least not when the composite shewa represents an "e" type voewel.

Scholars do not appear to have reached a consensus, as to why the Masoretes didn't point YHWH with the PRECISE vowel points of "Adonay" when the Tetragrammaton stands alone.

No. But I prefer the explanation that already the start Ya should be avoided. (Note how even abbreviating the tetragrammaton with a single yodh or heh is now often avoided and one sees a daleth instead.)

P.S. Do you have any evidence to support your edit that says that

Louis Cappel wrote "De nomine tetragrammato"?

Seeker02421 23:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

See http://www.antiqbook.nl/boox/oos/10409.shtml.

(I see that you added this ref. But it is a book for sale. Next week or next year the ref will be gone. [But maybe that doesnt matter - maybe everything on the web is volatile.])

I found the information in the ad very informative. I have no reason to doubt its accuracy.

Seeker02421 02:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Chatef vowels

Would Hebrew Grammar rules prevent an "a-type" composite shewa under a yod, in a 3-syllable word?

Roughly speaking the three chatef vowels occur often below alef, heh, chet, ayin, and not very often elsewhere. Chatef qamets has a number of occurrences after dagesh, and a few more, chatef segol also a few more, but maybe chatef patach occurs only below the four gutturals. None of these occur below yod, outside of ktb/q're.

On the other hand, in ktb/q're context one sees all kinds of "impossible" combinations, also of several vowels below a single consonant, so "Hebrew Grammar" is not a very good reason to avoid chatef patach but not chatef segol.

Hiphil/Qal

(rearranged some text to reply at the bottom)

Garth Grenache, the moderator of WHWHgroup, disputes Gesenius's Yahweh theory at the following link.

[1]

Hmm. To be more precise, Garth Grenache disputes his straw man of Gesenius' Yahweh theory. He writes "... so declare "Yahweh" a Hiphil Imperfect". But that is not what Gesenius does. He is a good scholar and discusses in detail various possibilities. In that discussion he also compares the choices of HWH Qal and Hiphil, and prefers Qal above Hiphil (but continues to discuss other possible analyses). I suppose that GG would not have written his message if he had read Gesenius' discussion first.

Garth had access to the information at the following link.[2]

Gesenius though that YaH:WeH "might be the Hiph. fut. of the substantive verb."

Seeker02421 02:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I see in many places in this discussion "the editors believe that", "the author thinks that", etc. Almost all such remarks are false or misleading. To use the verb "believe" is admissable only when the author himself writes "I believe that ...". When the author considers a hypothetical possibility, such verbs are entirely inappropriate. Especially when the author continues considering another and a third and a fourth hypothetical possibility.

I do not have a link, but I "think" that Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia' would approve of the following edit:

>>>

William Smith wrote:

"There remains to be noted the suggestion of Gesenius that the form יַהֲוָה‎‎, which he adopted, might be the Hiph. fut. of the substantive verb."

>>>

William Smith "might" have been using "weasel words" when he writes "suggestion" and "might", yet it is perfectly acceptable to quote that statement as he "William Smith" wrote it on "Wikipedia".

And it is at least possible that in the actual writings of Gesenius, Gesenius did indeed only "suggest" that xxxx "might" be xxxx.

As to whether or not Gesenius actually only suggested that יַהֲוָה‎‎ might be the Hiph. fut. of the substantive verb, that is an issue that Wikipedia does not deal with.

Seeker02421 14:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You see the falsehoods that are being introduced this way.

Author: "it might be A, it might be B, it might be C; however, D is more likely than A; then, there is also E"

1st hand quoter (in the process of discussing many possibilities): "Author suggested it might be A"

2nd hand quoter: "Author believes that it is A"

3rd hand quoter: "Author believes that it is A - he might be surprised learning about possibility D"

That is what happened in this case.

Never put "might" in italics - that drastically changes the meaning.

Without italics "might" just indicates a possibility, probably one among several.

In italics "might" indicates that one has serious doubts.

(Finally, you talk about Wikipedia, but this was mainly a reaction to the post by GG that you pointed to, unrelated to Wikipedia. It is related to Wikipedia only insofar I said that "author X believes that" must be used only when X himself uses the word "believe". In most other cases it is false, or not NPOV.)

Who is this God named Yahweh?

In the conclusion of his article:Who is this Deity Named Yahweh? the author Thomas M. Strouse writes:

>>>

Do Christians worship and serve a God named Yahweh?

If God has not preserved His words including the vowel pointing of the tetragrammaton, and critical scholars have restored His name through historical documentation, philology, and rationalism, then the answer is in the affirmative.

However, since none of the aforementioned is Scripturally valid or authoritative, then believers do not know how to pronounce the name of the Lord unless they receive by faith the preserved vocalization found in the Masoretic Hebrew text.

Christians do not know or worship a god named Yahweh, but instead believers do know and worship the God Jehovah. Believers have the assurance that "His name shall endure forever" (Ps. 72:17), which name is "the LORD God" (v. 18).

>>>

I think that it might be interesting to have supporters of the KJVO position, add their edits to the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh. What is titled "Controversy in the 17th century" in the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh is being played out in real time on the internet in 2006 on KJVO Discussion Boards.

Some supporters of the name "Jehovah", such as Scott Jones, very definitely believe that the Ben Chayyim Hebrew text which underlies the Old Testament of the King James Bible, "is given by inspiration of God". Thus like Gerard Gertoux, Scott Jones believes that it was no accident that יְהֹוָה‎‎ occurs 6518 times in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew text, and that יְהֹוָה‎‎ does not have the precise same vowel points as אֲדֹנָי‎!

Seeker02421 00:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to find the Scott Jones you refer to. Am interested in the reasonings people may have for their opinions or beliefs. Unfortunately I am unable to find people able to come with honest reasoning. It is completely standard for people in these circles to invent a point of view that their opponents do not have, to attack and demolish it. OK. Now what? The only result is that many readers will conclude that the author of such prose is dishonest. (This complaint is prompted by the reading of http://www.lamblion.net/Articles/ScottJones/jehovah1.htm .) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.84.53.62 (talk) 23:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

User talk:213.84.53.62

Scott Jones may be mistaken, but in most cases I don't consider him to be dishonest. He quotes both Christian Ginsburg and Davidson in his aricle.

Davidson appears to sincerely believe that the vowel points of יְהֹוָה‎‎ are the actual vowel points of God's name. He may be mistaken, but I do not believe that he is being dishonest.

Christian Ginsburg recognizes that the vowel points of יְהֹוָה‎‎ and the vowel points of "Adonay" are not precisely the same, yet he says in his writings that the vowel points of יְהֹוָה‎‎ belong to "Adonay". In my opinion Scott Jones should not be using Christian Ginsburg to support his case for the legitimacy of the vowel points of יְהֹוָה‎‎

Seeker02421 00:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Giving up

I see that you started adding more material. Since I do not want to remove it immediately again, it is not wrong, only misplaced, let me just give up the idea of editing the Yahweh article. Our ideas of what this article should be are too different.

[In fact a few things are wrong - for example, somewhere it talks about vowel points being part of a language, but of course spelling is never part of a language - also people who have not learned to read or write can know a language.]

The purpose of encyclopedic articles is to say as little as possible under each heading, and point to further places for details on related subjects or subtopics. The present article is about the question how to pronounce JHWH. Not about the reliability of the Bible text, or about the history of the Hebrew Bible, or any of a hundred other topics. All good topics, each belongs in its own place. And where such other articles have some relevance to the present article, there should be a reference.

In this particular case, the question about originality of vowel marking has been settled - ancient scrolls do not have them - so the fact that earlier people did not all have the same opinion about this is not very interesting. Today as far as I know nobody maintains the position that the vocalization is original. But then this is a historical remark, best placed under the articles about the people concerned.

All the time, the aim must be to make the article shorter, have a 25K article instead of the about 50K of today.

On Wikipedia Talk:Yahweh, I have recommended that sections 11 to 13 of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh be deleted. For all practical puposes these sections contain verbatim text, cut and pasted from the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911.

The deletion of these sections would delete 5 possibly 6 pages of printed text. [e.g. Footnotes 20-44 are all footnotes that were in the original Encyclopedia Article:JEHOVAH (YAHWEH), and would be eliminated if sections 11 to 13 were deleted.]

Seeker02421 15:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the current state of Yahweh, I see that you made it much worse and added some falsehoods. It is not true that "Today many, but not all, scholars agree that the pronunctuation 'Yahweh' might accurately represent the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton." Indeed, I think that no scholars exist that would make such a statement. The consensus is that 'Yahweh' is one among the best guesses we have, and that is a very different statement.

I respectfully disagree with your POV that this article is much worse since I made a major reorganization of the article.

My POV is that the article is overall much better,

because finally the first 5 pages

[e.g. Introduction through Section 4.1]

now actually deal with the name "Yahweh", which is the title of the Article.

I used that weasel word "might",

as in "might accurately represent the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton".

However Wikipedia rules allow you to edit that sentence.

Wikipedia rules invite anyone who has access to the Internet to edit Wikipedia Articles. That was the reason that Jimbo Wales started Wikipedia. Jimbo Wales recognized that there would be edit conflicts, but he believed that it was a plus not a minus that anyone who had access to the Internet could edit a Wikipedia Article.

Seeker02421 23:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

In speech one can distinguish the "might" that indicates a possibility, perhaps unlikely, from the "might" that indicates a probability. They have different tones. In writing one usually cannot - sometimes the difference is indicated by using ordinary font for the probability, and italics for the unlikely possibility. This means that "might" is not really a weasel word - it says something - in this case it said something that was false.

Yes, everybody can edit, and Jimbo Wales is happy since he does not do it himself. But people who write books and articles may try to update Wikipedia in the areas they know about, and quickly find out that people who know nothing about the subject change the stuff again. Producing a good article on a subject to be published in some journal takes a few weeks work. But getting and keeping Wikipedia correct requires an infinite amount of work, one has to fight corruption all the time.

Sometimes there are people that take the job of "keeper" of an article. For the Yahweh page I considered the possibility that you might have assumed that job. That is why I talked to you. But maybe you have not. Or maybe you have a very definite point of view that you want to propagate. At least readers are now warned in the introduction by the occurrence of KJVO.

User #62.163.47.51

You wrote:

"But getting and keeping Wikipedia correct requires an infinite amount of work, one has to fight corruption all the time."

By chance do you believe that if another editor posts something that you disagree with, that the article has been corrupted. If you do, I think that Jimbo Wales disagrees with you. Jimbo Wales wants all viewpoints to be presented in a NPOV manner. In my opinion Jimbo Wales never sees a Wikipedia Article as being perfect. Jimbo Wales had a vision of creating a website on which anyone who had access to the internet could add their particular level of expertize to any article, no matter how well it was written.

I think that there may be some exceptions to this rule on a particular touchy issue.

Thus I don't believe that Jimbo Wales ever forsaw the need to have any "keepers". No individual editor owns any Wikipedia Article. Back in the spring two editors tried to work together to write what in their POV was a perfect article on "Yahweh". They created chaos, and they both ended up getting banned. Thus this present Article started out very badly, as one of those editors who ended up getting banned, cut and pasted the Article "JEHOVAH" [Yahweh) from the Encylopedia Britannica of 1911 into this article titled "Yahweh".

As to adding information believed by KJVO Christians,in a NPOV manner, into an article titled "Yahweh", it is my opinion that Jimbo Wales would fully support that.

There is a controversy about the name "Yahweh" and KJVO Christians are possibly the most vocal professing Christians on the planet earth, who strongly oppose the name "Yahweh" on Biblical grounds.

Jimbo Wales believes that a good encyclopedia article makes known what people believe. Since some persons believe that God's name is "Yahweh" while other persons definitely believe that God's name is not "Yahweh", Jimbo Wales believes that a good article would present both "points of view" in a "neutral point of view" manner, and let the individual reader try to determine which "point of view", if either, is more correct.

Although presently revised, Wikipedia's previous policy of:

"Verifiability--not truth",is still more or less in effect here.

Hebrew scholars disagree with Hebrew scholars concerning the name "Yahweh". No one Hebrew scholar can write a perfect article on "Yahweh", because there is a second Hebrew scholar, standing behind him with equal credentials, who dsagrees at some point with what he wrote.

Seeker02421 22:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree that there is essential disagreement among Hebrew scholars. There is none. Of course there is lots of discussion about lots of details, but the basic facts are clear.

In an article about the Earth, I expect to see mentioned that Earth is approximately a sphere with a radius of about six thousand kilometers. People may be more precise if they wish. But if the introduction says that there are various points of view: some think that the earth is round while the Flat Earth Society thinks that the earth is flat, then such an article is not NPOV. An article about Yahweh that mentions KJVO in the introduction is not NPOV. It does not reflect general scholarly consensus. After all, the matter of the etymology of JHWH is not one to be settled by people who do not know Hebrew.

To quote a policy statement: "This means that we present accounts of views and arguments of reliable, verifiable scholars, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read the primary source material for themselves."

Revert

I reverted to some older version, getting more and more unhappy with the changes you made. Let me try to explain some points of criticism, partly repeating things I said earlier.

The task of the article is to first of all describe the current scholarly consensus, and then give related information: history of thoughts about the topic, alternative opinions, etc. The Introduction must give, in as few words as possible, an as clear as possible idea about the current consensus.

What is the consensus? It is: "Jehovah" was a mistake, "Jahweh" is a reasonable suggestion, there are also other reasonable suggestions.

"In the early 19th century Wilhelm Gesenius believed...".

I think it is bad to use "believe" about other people, unless they themselves have said or written "I believe ...".

"The editors of ... state that ...".

But the intro must describe current consensus, and back that up with references to some not too obscure sources, so that others can verify. The Wikipedia editor must consider himself capable of describing current opinion. It is not good enough to write: "in this book that is a century old, the author says this". The Wikipedia editor himself must say something.

"In the early 20th century, Gesenius's proposed punctuation יַהְוֶה‎ was becoming more acceptable to the editors of scholarly sources"

A strange sentence. Who are these editors of scholarly sources? And apart from that, do you have evidence that opinions in 1900 differed from those in 1850? My own opinion about this history is that there was a lot of debate at first, and a little debate later, not because of decisions taken by mysterious editors, but because all arguments were known, had been repeated many times, and nothing remained to be said, as long as no new evidence was discovered.

"While Gesenius's proposed punctuation יַהְוֶה‎ has a shva quiescens below the first ה‎, verb charts found in Hebrew Grammar Books indicate that this is acceptable in final ה‎ Hebrew verbs, such as יַהְוֶה‎ is believed to be.

Obscure discussion in the introduction. Bad.

KJVO - hmm, yes, you mention them and I try not to destroy information, so must also mention them, but know almost nothing about them. Is this group numerous? Do you belong to this group?

I tried to add one or two sentences to the introduction to make the state of affairs as clear as possible, while keeping the intro short. Even if a lot of the rest of the article is in bad shape, the intro can be ok.

User #213.84.53.62

You wrote:

"The task of the article is to first of all describe the current scholarly consensus, and then give related information: history of thoughts about the topic, alternative opinions, etc.

The Introduction must give, in as few words as possible, an as clear as possible idea about the current consensus."

I wish you good luck in your endeavor to improve the Wikipedia Artcle:Yahweh.

There seem to be so many Wikipedia users that believe that the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh is a "dreadful article"

Seeker02421 17:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Ha, I see that you made the intro even shorter. Good. However, I have two objections.

The first is that if one wants to find impartial opinions about Gesenius, going to Brown-Driver-Briggs is hardly a good idea, since the latter is the English translation of Gesenius' lexicon. Of course it says what Gesenius says.

The second is that the use of indent suggests that the "Note ..." sentence is also found in B-D-B, which it is not.

And consequently, the "Note ..." sentence was from the editor. But then such a sentence is less appropriate. In fact, I also consider it to be false or misleading in the sense that Gesenius, or any other Hebrew scholar, would never have written such a sentence. There is no comparison - no more or less accurately, since Jehovah is just a mistake - and there is no pronunciation - nobody knows how Hebrew was pronounced three thousand years ago. What is proposed is much weaker: a punctuation, how the Masoretes might have vowelized the Name had there not been a prohibition. People who worry about v against w forget that both English and German descend from common germanic where a single sound produced the w in English 'we' and the v that English ears hear in German 'wir'. In two thousand years things change a lot. Also Hebrew has changed a lot in the course of times. Talking about the pronunciation of ancient Hebrew is a dangerous activity.

Finally there is this insistence upon Gesenius that is unnecessary. He was a major voice, and probably it is because of him that people settled on 'Yahweh'. But he was not the first to propose 'Yahweh' - already Drusius did that.

By some coincidence I met today the form Ιαβαι in Theodoretos (Haer. Fab. Comp. V 3). Maybe nobody on the net mentions it? I must add it.

I asked whether you do belong to the KJVO people. Do you? Checking the Yahweh page for this Greek form I saw the intro again, and this glance stumbled on different things again. You write

"Note also that the Hebrew punctuation "יַהְוֶה‎", which was suggested by Gesenius in the early 1900's, is not found in any extant Masoretic Text."

It sounds like writing "note that 3x4 is not equal to 75". A true statement, but nobody claims the opposite, and the statement seems meaningless, unless the intention is to somehow make this punctuation suspect. You also write

"While there is a current consensus among scholars that the name "Yahweh" is likely to be closer to the original pronunciation of God's name than "Jehovah" is, no absolute proof exists that God's name was originally pronounced "Yahweh"!

Again a true statement where nobody claims the opposite. Again the intention can only be to promote a POV - the italics and exclamation mark have no other interpretation. I think the same information is contained in the old Intro, now called Jahweh and Jehovah, but without any sneaky insinuations. Am tempted to remove this new intro again. It is true that it is short, but it is also bad. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

User #213.84.53.62

You wrote:

"I asked whether you do belong to the KJVO people. Do you?

I am not a KJVO Christian, but I am somewhat knowledgeable concerning their beliefs.

User #213.84.53.62

You wrote:

"Checking the Yahweh page for this Greek form I saw the intro again, and this glance stumbled on different things again. You write

"Note also that the Hebrew punctuation "יַהְוֶה‎", which was suggested by Gesenius in the early 1900's, is not found in any extant Masoretic Text."

It sounds like writing "note that 3x4 is not equal to 75". A true statement, but nobody claims the opposite, and the statement seems meaningless, unless the intention is to somehow make this punctuation suspect.

When the Brown-Driver_Briggs Lexicon writes:

" יהוה‎_{c. 6823} i.e. יַהְוֶה‎ n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel" it sure looks like they are claiming that יַהְוֶה‎ is a Biblical Hebrew word that is found in the Masoretic Text. A person reading a Lexicon ordinarilly expects Hebrew words that are explained to be part of the Hebrew Bible. The editors of the Brown-Driver_Briggs give the impression that יַהְוֶה‎ n.pr.dei Yahweh, is the proper name of the God of Israel"

I feel that I, as an editor of a Wikipedia Article, am under some obligation to make known to the reader that יַהְוֶה‎ is only a suggested pronunciation of "the proper name of the God of Israel", and is found in no extant Masoretic Text.

If the Brown-Driver-Briggs editors were alive today, they would not be allowed to post the following POV statement in a Wikipedia Article.

" יהוה‎_{c. 6823} i.e. יַהְוֶה‎ n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel"

I have once again rewritten the introduction of the article, trying to correct some of the previous criticisms of the Introduction that that you had written.

Seeker02421 23:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

User #213.84.53.62, In a earlier edit you correctly quoted me as saying:

"While there is a current consensus among scholars that the name "Yahweh" is likely to be closer to the original pronunciation of God's name than "Jehovah" is, no absolute proof exists that God's name was originally pronounced "Yahweh"!

You then wrote:

Again a true statement where nobody claims the opposite. Again the intention can only be to promote a POV - the italics and exclamation mark have no other interpretation.

Actually the chief elder [i.e. Pastor Tom Schaller] of Greater Grace World Outreach [ i.e. GGWO ] in Baltimore, Maryland believes and teaches that "Yahweh" is the actual true pronunciation of God's name.

All the members of GGWO are taught that God's name is "Yahweh". They seem to be basing their belief primarily on the Greek writings of Clement of Alexandria. 20th century Greek scholars have written critical editions of the writings of Clement of Alexandria, in which they write "Iaoue" in Greek letters in Stromata Book V. chapter 6.

However these same Greek scholars openly acknowledge, in their critical editions, that there is an 11th century Greek Codex L. in which "Iaou" not "Iaoue" is found in Stromata Book V. chapter 6.

And to be redundant, the editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon make no attempt to warn the reader that יַהְוֶה‎ is not found in the Hebrew Bible. Of course I suppose any Hebrew scholar would know that, but the persons who read the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh may not all be Hebrew scholars.

Seeker02421 00:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Concerning B-D-B: OK - I agree with you on this point.

Concerning Clemens - I checked my edition (a German translation that has some Greek footnotes), and it has Iaou, not Iaoue.

Concerning GGWO - here I say the same as about KJVO: such points of view must be discussed later in the article, not in the intro.

Concerning the intro: ach, you and I have very different tastes. You changed a few things, but everything is getting messier and uglier.

Let me read it again.

I hope to read: Jehovah: obtained by reading what is written in the later manuscripts; generally considered a mistake. Jahweh: a reasonable guess.

What do I read? "Consensus: Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel". But that is not the consensus. The consensus is that it is a reasonable guess.

And then it continues: "While the statement above appears to state as a fact ..." - but that is discussion in the intro. The intro should just state the current consensus and refer to further sections for other points of view.

Then "... merely a suggestion made by Gesenius" - a rather strange thing to say considering that B-D-B is essentially the same as Gesenius, so that the statement becomes that what Gesenius says is merely what Gesenius says.

Then "There is a current consensus among scholars that the name "Yahweh" is likely to be closer to the original pronunciation of "the proper name of the God of Israel" than the name "Jehovah" is. However no absolute proof exists that "the proper name of the God of Israel" was originally pronounced "Yahweh !" (There is a quote missing, and an exclamation mark that should be removed.) Again this is false. This is not the current consensus.

There are scrolls, and these scrolls have been written by Jewish scribes, using marks invented by Jewish scholars. If one wonders how to read these scrolls, then clearly one should consult Jewish sources. The Jewish tradition is that of a Qere Perpetuum. Consequently, that is the basis interpretation. If one doesn't know tradition one might mistakenly read something else, but that is not what the Jewish tradition says they wrote. OK. That means that Jehovah is a mistake of ignorance, not knowing the tradition. Then what is right? Nobody knows. There are some that argue that in fact Jehovah might be the correct reading after all. Not many believe this, but it is a possibility. I use all these words to show why your text is incorrect. If all you have is a handful of guesses, there is no matter of "closer", there is only a matter of more reasonable, fitting with other known facts, or less reasonable, without such support from elsewhere.

So, you use twice the word consensus, and twice you misrepresent the consensus. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.84.53.62 (talk) 02:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC).

User 213.84.53.62

It appears to me that it is time for you to rewrite the Introduction of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh. I certainly would like to read an Introduction to the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh that has been completely written by you.

Seeker02421 13:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't know. The previous intro more or less says what it should say, but you must have been unhappy with it since you made it a section "Yahweh and Jehovah" and wrote something else as intro. Now I returned to the old intro. Perhaps you can explain what you thought was/is wrong with it?

User 213.84.53.62

You returned to the old intro at 12:56 on 21 December 2006

However,

Insanephantom reverted your edit at 12:58 on 21 December 2006

I like very much your last paragraph:

"In the early 19th century the Hebrew scholar Gesenius

[1] proposed the vocalization יַהְוֶה‎, that is, 'Yahweh'.

Today many scholars accept this proposal.

[2] (Here 'accept' does not necessarily mean that they actually believe that it describes the truth, but rather that among the many vocalizations that have been proposed, none is clearly superior. That is, 'Yahweh' is the scholarly convention, rather than the scholarly consensus.)"

I see that paragraph blending effortlessly with the present sentence that follows the quote from the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, resulting, in my opinion, in the creation of a much improved Introduction to the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh.

The result would be what is shown below, although other editing is also possible:

• The current consensus on the name "Yahweh" is much the same as it was in 1905 when the editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon wrote:

" יהוה‎_{c. 6823} i.e. יַהְוֶה‎ n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel"

While the statement above appears to state as a fact that יַהְוֶה‎ n.pr.dei Yahweh, is the actual proper name of the God of Israel, the editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon were aware that it was only in the early 19th century that the Hebrew scholar Gesenius had proposed the vocalization יַהְוֶה‎, that is, 'Yahweh'.

Today many scholars accept this proposal.

(Here 'accept' does not necessarily mean that they actually believe that it describes the truth, but rather that among the many vocalizations that have been proposed, none is clearly superior. That is, 'Yahweh' is the scholarly convention, rather than the scholarly consensus.)

In his Hebrew Dictionary, Wilhelm Gesenius says

"One should probably pronounce it יַהְוֶה‎, because Theodoret reports the Samaritan pronounciation Ιαβε, and because this provides an explanation for the contracted forms at the end or the beginning of proper names."

Early Christian literature written in Greek had used spellings like Iαουε and Ιαβε that can be transcribed by 'Yahweh', however no absolute proof exists that "the proper name of the God of Israel" was originally pronounced "Yahweh !

• The current consensus on the name "Jehovah" is also much the same as it was in 1905 when the editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon wrote that although the Biblical Hebrew punctuation "יְהֹוָה‎", [ from which the English name "Jehovah" is derived ] occurs 6518 times in the Masoretic Text, it does not represent the actual pronunciation of God's name but instead is an example of Qere perpetuum. [ e.g. ( Qr אֲדֹנָי‎) ]

[Refer to section # 2 for more details on Qere perpetuum ]

Seeker02421 15:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. You want to change something, but it is still not clear to me why or what is wrong in your eyes.

The result would be what is shown below, although other editing is also possible

But what is wrong with the present text?

Somebody wrote in "Yahweh:Talk" that if one doesnt already know what Yahweh is, an intro that begins with: today we think just like B-D-B in 1905 is not very enlightening. Thus, the very first thing one has to do is define the term. Fortunately, the present text does that.

Your text above still has the two problems I mentioned earlier: it refers twice to consensus, and twice incorrectly. It contains an exclamation mark. It contains discussion.

(My experience is that the more capital letters, bold letters, exclamation marks an author uses, the less reliable the text is. The above exclamation mark exclaims: "I am written by an unreliable author, please do not believe the current text". A NPOV text does not have exclamation marks.)

Your text refers to B-D-B and to Gesenius as if they are independent sources, but B-D-B is just the English translation of Gesenius.

[Something entirely different: this page is getting rather long. Maybe one should delete some more, or archive or so.]

User 131.155.69.31

Assuming that you are the same user who has previously posted as User 213.84.53.62, we just do not agree on how to write the introduction to the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh.

I truely do not like the present Introduction.

As noted previously, I like the last paragraph of the Introduction, in fact, I think it belongs as the first paragraph of the Introduction.

In my opinion, the placing of the present last paragraph at the beginning of the article, immediately helps the reader to understand where the name "Yahweh" has come from, and "Yahweh" is the name of the Artcle.

However I believe that the last paragraph would need some editing, if it was placed at the beginning of the Introduction.

I do not like the present first sentence of the Introduction. I feel it is not accurate to write that:

"Jehovah is an attempt at an English reading of יהוה‎‎ (the Tetragrammaton), God's name, as preserved in the original consonantal Hebrew Bible text".

"Iehouah" and "Iehovah" and "Jehovah" are all good faith English translations/transcriptions of יְהֹוָה‎‎, not of יהוה‎‎, by early English translators of the "Printed" Masoretic Text.

The first translators of יְהֹוָה‎‎ were Protestant Christians who believed in "Sola Scriptura". They believed that God wrote what He meant, and meant what He wrote in the Hebrew Scriptures. Apparently this is not true of any vocalized spelling of יהוה‎‎ in any "Masoretic Text"

The present consensus amoung scholars is that these first translators [into English] of יְהֹוָה‎‎ were in error to believe that יְהֹוָה‎‎ represented the actual pronunciation of the Name of the God of Israel.

Thus it was only after scholars became more convinced that the Masoretes had not placed the correct vowel points in יהוה‎‎, that Hebrew scholars such a Gesenius [and others] began to suggest various punctuations that might represent the correct pronunciation of יהוה‎ (the Tetragrammaton), God's name, as preserved in the original consonantal Hebrew Bible text.

After more and more scholars became convinced that the Masoretes had not placed the correct vowel points in יהוה‎‎ it became very difficult for any Bible Believing Christians to believe that God's name, as it is found in the Masoretic Text, "is given by inspiration of God". However in 2006 A.D. there is one very small group of Bible Believing Christians (called KJVO Christians} who insist that God's name is actually "Jehovah"

While 20th century Greek scholars claim that in about 190 A.D. Clement of Alexandria wrote that the Tetragrammaton was called "Iαουε" = Yahweh, in an extant 11th Century Greek Codex L, "Iaou" not "Iaoue" is found in Stromata Book V. Chapter 6.

I have found no evidence that any scholar, in the years 1100 A.D. to 1850 A.D. wrote that Clement of Alexandria wrote "Iaoue".

"Iaoue" is found in Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible", but it is not clearly attributed to Clement of Alexandria.

Seeker02421 18:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Could you add any information about יָהּ‎ to the Article?

I will. (Maybe you'll have to remind me - will be away for a while.) There is a lot of literature on the discussion whether Yahh is the original name and Yahweh (or any other proposed name) is an extension, or the converse, that Yahh is a shortening of the full name. Maybe there is no present consensus.

(I must also try and trace Iaoue - I checked everything I have here at home and find Iaou only.)

we just do not agree

I think we can agree in the end.

KJVO, GGWO, ..

Religion is a set of beliefs. Why do people believe? Generally speaking because they were taught at so young an age that they accepted everything their parents or teachers told them as the full truth, and based their view of the world on it. That goes for all religions, and people therefore tend to have the same religion as their parents or environment, be it Jew, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, etc. For almost 1500 years, christian religion was mostly an oral tradition - that is, only priests that had studied Latin could read the Bible, ordinary people should just believe what they were told by the priests. Then Reformation came, and christian religion was democratized. No more Latin needed, everybody could read the Bible in his own language. No more dependence on priests, ultimately on Rome, but independent communities that each read the Bible. Of course immediately this Protestant movement fractured into several hundred small denominations, each with his own reading of the Bible. Now that Rome no longer was the final authority, the Bible was the final authority, and it was necessary to view the Bible as infallible, as Gods literal own words. Of course reality is rather different. For many centuries the ancient Jews have told each other these stories before they were written down for the first time, and early manuscripts contain the same stories told in different words. It took several hundred years before these texts started to be considered so holy that no tittle or iota could be changed. A lot of work has been spent comparing many manuscripts to construct a canonical version of Old and New Testament, a "textus receptus". Everybody knows this, and Roman Catholics tend not to object, they also have their tradition, but Protestants tend to feel that they lose all they base their belief on when they learn that vowel signs are recent, that there are many versions of the Greek and Hebrew texts, that there were different opinions about which books should be part of the Bible and which should not, etc. Some go so far as to battle this insecurity by a strict denial: no, the entire Bible is Gods literal word, every single letter of it. They face the difficult question what "the Bible" means in this context. A very small group will answer: the Bible my parents and grandparents read from - the King James Version.

Proposed new Introduction to Wikipedia Article:Yahweh

In the 16th century several English Bibles were published in which the English transcription "Iehouah" occurred in several verses, as the name of the God of Israel.

In 1604 A.D., John Drusius (a.k.a. Jan Drusius) [1550-1616] published an article Tetragrammaton, sive de Nomine Die proprio, quod Tetragrammaton vocant, in which he discussed the pronunciation of God's name. One of his arguments was that neither the Masoretic punctuation יְהֹוָה‎ [from which the English transcriptions "Iehouah" and "Iehovah" and "Jehovah" have been derived] nor the Masoretic punctuation יְהֹוִה‎ represented the actual pronunciation of God's name.[10] He proposed "Jahve".

Just over 200 years later, in the early 19th century the Hebrew scholar Gesenius proposed that the vocalization יַהְוֶה‎, that is, Yahweh, might better represent the actual pronunciation of God's name. Early Christian literature written in Greek had used spellings like Iαουε and Ιαβε that can be transcribed by 'Yahweh'.

Today many scholars accept this proposal. (Here 'accept' does not necessarily mean that they actually believe that it describes the truth, but rather that among the many vocalizations that have been proposed, none is clearly superior. That is, 'Yahweh' is the scholarly convention, rather than the scholarly consensus.)

Thus Yahweh is a proposed English reading of יהוה‎ (the Tetragrammaton), God's name, as preserved in the original consonantal Hebrew Bible text. The four Hebrew consonants יהוה‎ read JHWH (in German transcription) or YHVH (in English transcription). It is also common to use YHWH.

Jews do not pronounce the name, but use e.g. HaShem ("The Name"). When the Masoretes added vowel points to the consonant text to assist readers, they added the vowels for "Adonai" ("Lord"), the word to use when the Bible text is read. Also the Septuagint (Greek translation) and Vulgata (Latin translation) use the word "Lord" (kurios and dominus, respectively).

When Christians, unaware of the Jewish tradition, started to read the Hebrew Bible, they read יְהֹוָה‎ with the vowels together with the consonants as written, and obtained Iehouah in 1530, Iehovah in 1611, and Jehovah in 1769. Today these three transcriptions are recognized as mistakes. Many religious groups continue to use the form Jehovah, because it is familiar and because the correct pronunciation of יהוה‎ is unknown.

Entirely reasonable. I have no objections. (Corrected a typo.)

I'll be abroad the coming time, probably away from internet. Hope to see your text when I return.

Yahweh / Jehovah

I merged back from Jehovah to Yahweh the matter that was specifically about the name Yahweh. I left a pointer. This may look like a big step, but I felt that I had to avoid matters getting back to the jungle of multiple content forking between several pages that was before about May 2006. Anthony Appleyard 05:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Anthony

I agree. Thanks for making the change

I agree with your recommendation to use the WYS/WYG forms of Hebrew words,

however which Hebrew font do you think looks better on the computer screen:

1. יְהֹוָה‎ using a Hebrew template?

OR

2. יְהֹוָה without a Hebrew template?

Try printing them out and ask yourself the same question.

I think that 1. looks better than 2. on the computer screen

But

I think that 2. looks better than 1. when printed out.

In my opinion, the WYS/WYG forms should be placed within a Hebrew template, so that the Hebrew font looks better on the computer screen.

What do you think?

Seeker02421 16:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

GGWO

Just to let you know that GGWO are trying slant the views of their article to hide the possible cult status - keep an eye out for them! I'd appreciate you replying on the article's talk page :-)Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry 18:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Jehovah edits

Just a note about your edits to Jehovah. I appreciate your edits, but a few of them are unhelpful. One important thing to remember is to avoid self reference. In an earlier version of the article you had put in This Wikipedia Article:Jehovah purposes to cover the various "points of view" concerning the name "Jehovah" - this goes against WP:SELF. As I write this, you've made changes to the intro which intoduce numerous mistakes - "Jehovah" in bold font twice, a sentence without a full stop, the date 1761 instead of 1671, etc. These sorts of things make more work for the rest of us - please be very careful, and think twice before making an edit. StAnselm (talk) 13:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Reverted an edit of yours. Criticism:

...that occurs 6518 times...: That is not the kind of detail desired in the intro.

...early Christian scholars, who mistakenly assumed that the vowel points found in יְהֹוָה‎ represented the actual vowels of God's name: An encyclopedia is neutral, it does not suppose that a god exists, or anything about its name. Moreover, this sentence is a misunderstanding: the truth is not that these translators were unacquainted with God's name, while now we know - no, the truth is that these translators were probably unacquainted with a certain Jewish tradition, and now we know about it. 213.84.53.62 (talk) 22:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

RfC on Alleichem

An RfC has been started for User:Alleichem. Since you have been a party to disputes with this user, it would be helpful if you could post your opinion there. -LisaLiel (talk) 13:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Name Pronunciation

I think you may enjoy a paper written by someone I know, it discusses the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, and it looks like it argues for the same opinion as yours. The Pronunciation of the Name It is one of the better argued papers I have seen. — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Imeriki al-shimoni,

I have a copy of "The Pronunciation of the Name". I think that it was written by Nehemiah Gordon, who argues for the legitimacy of the name "Jehovah". He recognizes that (Y)Jehovah does not have the precise vowels as does Adonai. "Yahovah" has the precise same vowels as Adonai, but I don't think that "Yahovah" is found in any Hebrew text.

He notes that The Anchor Bible Dictionary states that the pronunciation of yhwh as "Yahweh" is only a sholarly guess. He then notes that "If Yahweh is a scholarly guess, what do we really know about how the name was pronounced?"

I have similar beliefs.

Seeker02421 (talk) 03:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Self-references to avoid

Please review Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid and Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles. If you have concerns with an article, please try to fix them yourself, or add various discussion/dispute tags to the article, and discuss the matter further on the talk page. The edits you made were inappropriate, and a step in the wrong direction. Please consider other matters of amicable dispute resolution (WP:DR). -Andrew c ^[talk] 16:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Andrew c:

You wrote:

"If you have concerns with an article, please try to fix them yourself, or add various discussion/dispute tags to the article, and discuss the matter further on the talk page."

I have edited the Introduction of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh, and provided a link to the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon of 1905.

The BDB Lexicon of 1905 shows Gesenius's Proposed Hebrew punctuation [i.e. vocalization] of YHWH, and then defines it as "n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Isreal-

In my edit I have called "Yahweh" "the proper name of the God of Isael" [ by scholarly consensus ].

Seeker02421 (talk) 15:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

villagephotos.com

I deleted your link to the site for the Genesis voweling - the site villagephotos.com is a phishing site, for your own computer's sake you should avoid it. No problem with the image itself.

PiCo (talk) 07:09, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

October 2010

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy by adding commentary and your personal analysis into articles, as you did at Yaweh, you may be blocked from editing. This and This are not acceptable by any means. No more stunts ok? or this will go to WP:ANI The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 13:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi ResidentAnthropologist|

Another poster claimed that "Yahweh" was a "guess name". Was I wrong to respond to what appeared to be an unsubstanuated NPOV claim written by another Wikipedia Poster.

My quote about Gesenius was from "in the public domain" Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible". Was I wrong in quoting from a 19th century source that is in the public domain, and definitely deals with the "notable Controversy" about the name "Yahweh" that states that "Yahweh" is only a "Guess name"

Isn't it not only allowable, but recommended by :Wikipedia Guidelines". to discuss "Notable Controversies" about "Yahweh" in the Introduction of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh?

If ever there was a notable controversy that should be discussed in the introduction of a Wikipedia Article named "Yahweh" , it would seem to be the name "Yahweh as used in the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh.

AM I MISTAKEN ABOUT WHAT WIKIPEDIA CONSIDERS TO BE A "NOTABLE CONTROVERSY" THAT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED IN THE INTRODUCTION OF A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE????

I though that Wikipedia's NPOV Policy allowed for the posting of information found in sources that are in the public Domain, such as William Smith's "1863 A Dictionary of the Bible?"

Seeker02421 (talk) 13:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

That not what you did in those edits you added no such text. Referencing the WP:MOS in and even wiki-lilnking is not allowed You are obviously not ignorant of that fact. under a misleading edit summary to boot is dishonest and in some cases block able offense. Do not do it again. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 15:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

explain yourself

Can you please explain, in coherent and understandable English, what topic exactly you think should be discussed under the title Yahweh? So far you are not making any kind of sense, and you seem to refuse to discuss whatever it is you want to achieve in good faith. As long as you keep doing this, you are simply part of the problem, not of the solution.

Hi Dbachmann.

I am postimg some of my comments made 2 days ago on Wikipedia Talk:Yahweh.

Would you like to ask anything about what I just wrote 2+ days ago. At that time, I assume an excellant article titled Wikipedia Yahweh: (Canaanite Deity) had just been written. that you and PiCo and many like-minded-Wikipedia editors were very happy with.

However I for one was not happy in that this Wikipedia Article Yahweh had seemingly disappeared off of the face of the earth, in the process of your creating a new article.

In my opinion that never had to happen!!!!!

Two or more days ago, I had written:

Whatever is the final decision, I hope that the original Wikipedia Article:Yahweh,
[ WHICH SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN TOTALLY DELETED AT THIS TIME!
will be restored as a legitimate Wikipedia Article, and that any Wikipedia Editor may post on it, and if one or more of the new Wikipedia editors of the restored Wikipedia Article:Yahweh should reach a consensus amoung themselves to write an article totally different from that Wikipedia Article:Yahweh that has just recently been deleted without any consensus, that that new Article should be allowed to be written.

Seeker02421 (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

At the time that I wrote that post, You and several other posters, without seeking any consensus that I am aware of, had totally rewritten the previous Wikipedia Article: Yahweh, and renamed the new article Wikipedia: Yahweh(Canaanite deity) From my point of view this should have completely satisfied you and PiCo and others who wanted to write such an article. As far as I know Wikipedia would have put their seal-of-approval on what you did, and we all could have moved on.

However after your very rapid hi-jacking of the original Wikipedia Article: which had existed in relative peace for 3-4 years, no Wikipedia Article:Yahweh any longer existed, for any of the previous posters who might have liked the previous version of Wikipedia"Yahweh to still exist, while you and PiCo and others enjoyed to the fullest writing a completely new article on Yahweh without any resistance from the editors who would have liked to continue posting on the Original Wikipedia Article:Yahweh which had a history going back to probably before 1987.

In my opinion there is nothing preventing you and PiCo and other like-minded Wikipedia editors from starting a new article at-this-very- moment, which would be titled Wikipedia Yahweh (Cannanite Deity} and would look just like the Article that existed 1-2 days ago. The only difference would be that this present Wikipedia Article: Yahweh, would still exist, and those editors who wanted to rewrite it, in a different way could try to seek consensus, during Wikipedia Yahweh discussions.

May be they would not be able to reach any concensus, but at least if this article still existed as Wikipedia:Yahweh, they would have an oportunity to try.

Dbachmann, does what I wrote make any sense to you.

P.S. If you wanted to you and Pico and others could go to Wikinfo, and immediately start the creation of the perfect article, that you all could agree to--Plus you could use Original Research and Wikinfo would welcome you with open arms.

Seeker02421

P.S. I never answered your question, but in my opinion any article that is written on "Yahweh", most definitely should spend a large amount of time explaining just what evidence exists that a God named Yahweh" ever existed.

Are you aware that the four English Bibles that have been written since 1905 A.D., in which the English name "Yahweh" occurs 6823 times, all agree in Exodus 6:2-3 that Yahweh did not reveal His presumed name [ i.e Yahweh ] to either Abraham or Isaac or Jacob. Don't you believe that that information belongs somwhere in the article that you and PiCo and other Wikipedia editors end up writing?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Seeker02421 (talk • contribs)

you did not answer my request, you blanked half of it, you do not sign your posts, and you cannot even write grammatical English. I am sorry, but it is impossible to have a discussion at such an abysmal level. Please find an topic for which you have some basic qualification to contribute.

If you are interested in the topic of the history of the God of Israel, please read the YHWH article. Also, please read the Yahweh article in the DDD. If you are interested in "Yahweh" as a rendition of the tetragrammation in modern Bibles, please consider reviewing Yahweh (Christianity). --dab (𒁳) 22:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Debachmann,

I am mostly concerned with the truthfulness of the first sentence of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh which you yourself just restored.

As you should know, I believe that the first sentence of the Wikipedia article:Yahweh that you restored, has a blatant error, in that it strongly implies that Gesenius's proposed Hebrew reconstruction of YHWH, [i.e. יַהְוֶה‎], is the actual Biblical Hebrew form of God's name that is found in the Hebrew Bible.

The first sentence of the Article:Yahweh, which you yourself restored reads:

"Yahweh (Northwest Semitic Yahweh, also Yahu) is the name of a god in ancient Semitic religion and notably the reconstructed Biblical Hebrew form of God's name in the Hebrew Bible."

As I assume you already know, Gesenius's proposed reconstructed Biblical Hebrew form of God's name in the Hebrew Bible, CAN NOT BE FOUND IN ANY EXTANT Hebrew Bible, on the planet earth. Would you be willing to correct this error, if you determine that my criticism of the first sentence is actually correct?

However, if you truely believe there is nothing wrong with this sentence, would you please provide evidence that Gesenius's Proposed Hebrew Punctuation [i.e. יַהְוֶה‎ ] ,is actually found in some extant Hebrew Bible.

Thank you in advance for any effort you make in correcting this error that I believe presently exists in the first sentence of this Wikipedia:Yahweh Article.

Using other words, since the first sentence claims that [ i.e. יַהְוֶה‎ ] the reconstructed Biblical Hebrew is a form of God's name in the {{Hebrew Bible]] would you just post a citation that acknowledges that that statement is true, as required by Wikipedia Rules.

At present the first sntence reads as follows, unless I didn't cut and paste it correctly.

>>>>

"Yahweh (Northwest Semitic Yahweh, also Yahu) is the name of a god in ancient Semitic religion and notably the reconstructed Biblical Hebrew form of God's name in the Hebrew Bible."

>>>>

P.S. I am not obviously trying to turn this into a cfork of YHWH, as you accused me of doing. I am merely pointing out that I believe that the first sentence has a blatant error in it and that I was hoping that you or some other Wikipedia Editor would be willing to correct it, or as mentioned above, provide evidence that the first sentence is correct as it is written.

I would truely be pleased if you could provide a citation that proves that [i.e. יַהְוֶה‎ ] is indeed notably the reconstructed Biblical Hebrew form of God's name that can actually be found in the Hebrew Bible

However I truely do not believe that you or any other editor can provide such a citation. Seeker02421 (talk) 03:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

January 2011

Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! I noticed that you recently added commentary to an article, Yahweh. While Wikipedia welcomes editors' opinions on an article and how it could be changed, these comments are more appropriate for the article's accompanying talk page. If you post your comments there, other editors working on the same article will notice and respond to them and your comments will not disrupt the flow of the article. However, keep in mind that even on the talk page of an article, you should limit your discussion to improving the article. Article talk pages are not the place to discuss opinions of the subject of articles nor are such pages a forum. Thank you. If you continue to do this you will probably be blocked. This is becoming disruptive. Dougweller (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

This is your Final Warning another addition of commentary in the article and This Will go to the Administrator's Notice Board for Incidents The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

March 2011 ANI notice

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 17:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

March 2011

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for for your disruptive editing at Yahweh, particularly adding polemic that belongs on the talkpage into the article.. If you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Note for reviewing admins - this is a standard admin block (not an Arbcom block) and user can be unblocked by any admin provided he shows that he understands that adding polemic, discursive talkpage material and edits like this to the article is extremely disruptive. See ANI report for more details. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Elen I, Seeker 02421 Seeker02421 (talk) 20:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC) seem to have been blocked twice from trying to explain my situation. in much the same way as my last edit of Wikipedia:Yahweh was totally rejected by some editor or moderator after being fully accepted just a few seconds earlier.

Seeker02421 (talk) 20:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi again Elen

The information below is from my last edit of Wikipedia:Yahweh on 28 March 2001 at 14:13 at which time my edit received a complete bill of approval.

However a little more than 2 minutes later at 16:13 Anthony Appleyard decided it was necessary to revert my previous edit, which someone in authority in Wikipedia had just accepted 100 %.

HOW CAN THIS ALL HAPPEN IN THE SPACE OF ONLY 2 minutes????

===============================================

Seeker02421 (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)Seeker 02421

(cur | prev)  16:13, 28 March 2011 Anthony Appleyard (talk | contribs) m (80,801 bytes) (Reverted edits by Seeker02421 (talk) to last version by SmackBot) [automatically accepted] 

(cur | prev) 14:13, 28 March 2011 Seeker02421 (talk | contribs) (81,614 bytes) (Added an image of Gesenius's 1815 A.D. Hebrew punctuation of Yahweh which is found in no Extant Hebrew Manuscript on the Planet Earth!) [automatically accepted]

• Seeker, the article is protected by WP:pending changes. The "automatically accepted" means that you are an autoconfirmed editor, and your edit is not subject to a flagged revision, as it would be if you were an IP or a new editor. You'll see Anthony Appleyard's edit also has [automatically accepted] against it. The real live humans editing the article rejected your disruptive insertion of material that would be only marginally acceptable on a talkpage, and never in the article.

Incidentally, 16.13 is two hours after 14.13, not two minutes. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Seeker02421 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

I'd like to speak to Elen of the Roads concerning my block

Decline reason:

This does not appear to be an unblock request. Please do not use unblock requests for purposes other than requesting an unblock. --Kinu ^t/_c 21:29, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

seeker02421