Conversion to Karaite Judaism (Torah-Only Judaism)

[RabbiO]

On second thought, how many vowels were available in the first century ce (other than the consonantal ones of the tetragrammaton itself) and where might Josephus have seen the tetragrammaton employing them?

I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat.

 

[Tumah]

On second thought, how many vowels were available in the first century ce (other than the consonantal ones of the tetragrammaton itself) and where might Josephus have seen the tetragrammaton employing them?

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. In Hebrew, there are 22 consonants, with a few of them also sometimes being indicative of a certain vowel present. But the actual vowels are an entirely separate system.
The DSS doesn't use vowels from what I can see online. The earliest example I could find, was the vowels used by the Masoretes in Israel as early as the 7th century. They used at least 6 vowels then. But that's still a 600 year difference.

When Josephus writes that that there are four vowels, well there are only four letters. So if he did mean vowels, it would mean that each letter had a vowel underneath it. That's not impossible, but its generally not consistent with words ending in the letter heh (barring a suffix). Although it does reflect the kabbalistic approach to vowelizing the Tetragrammaton.

But regardless, the earlier question remains. Why would Josephus describe the vowels of the Tetragrammaton without letting the reader know how many letters there were in the word on the item he was describing? The only other possibility that I can think of is that he means that the letters are all pronounced as they would be when they are indicating a vowel. But that doesn't make it any more enlightening as I can think off-hand of a yod in a word being pronounced with a /i/ or /e/, the only time I can think of a heh telling you anything is usually at the end of a word it indicates that the letter before it has a /ɔ/ and a vav can indicate either /o/ or /u/. So its not really very informative, unless its was really meant to be speaking about the letters.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. ...

When Josephus writes that that there are four vowels, well there are only four letters. So if he did mean vowels, it would mean that each letter had a vowel underneath it.

Given ...

Several diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes ofTiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew). The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them. - Wiki

I mean that the writings of Josephus antedates the development of the diacritical systems by centuries.

 

[Tumah]

Given ...

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I mean that the writings of Josephus antedates the development of the diacritical systems by centuries.

That's true, which is why I brought the DSS as an example. I also brought as an example the system of the Masoretes in Israel which is older than the Tiberian one.
Do you want to argue that they introduced an entirely new way of pronouncing words rather than just systemizing the pronunciation that already existed and that originally those three letters were simply vowels? I'm not sure that would work so well in practice when reading an older text.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

That's true, which is why I brought the DSS as an example. I also brought as an example the system of the Masoretes in Israel which is older than the Tiberian one.
Do you want to argue that they introduced an entirely new way of pronouncing words rather than just systemizing the pronunciation that already existed and that originally those three letters were simply vowels? I'm not sure that would work so well in practice when reading an older text.

I don't understand. Note:

The Palestinian vocalization reflects the Hebrew of Palestine of at least the 7th century CE. A common view among scholars is that the Palestinian system preceded the Tiberian system, but later came under the latter's influence and became more similar to the Tiberian tradition of the ben Asher school. All known examples of the Palestinian vocalization come from the Cairo Geniza, discovered at the end of the 19th century, although scholars had already known of the existence of a "Palestinian pointing" from the Mahzor Vitry. In particular, the Palestinian piyyutimgenerally make up the most ancient of the texts found, the earliest of which date to the 8th or 9th centuries and predate most of the known Palestinian biblical fragments. [ibid]

What does this have to do with the time in which Josephus wrote?

Given that vowel pointers were a considerably later development, it seems most reasonable to assume that Josephus was referring to the four characters of the tetragrammaton when he referred to four vowels - unless you're suggesting that Josephus actually meant that the tetragrammaton was vocalized with four vowels.

 

[Tumah]

I don't understand. Note:

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What does this have to do with the time in which Josephus wrote?

Given that vowel pointers were a considerably later development, it seems most reasonable to assume that Josephus was referring to the four characters of the tetragrammaton when he referred to four vowels - unless you're suggesting that Josephus actually meant that the tetragrammaton was vocalized with four vowels.

It doesn't seem likely that letters were used in place of vowels before the Masoretes came around. There are tons of words in Tanach, the Mishnah (Rabbinical Hebrew) and the Talmud (Aramaic being strongly related to Hebrew) that contain none of these vowel letters. This would have resulted in a huge shift in spelling to represent the movement of the vowels from letters to diacritics. And it would have had to take place in the 100 years between Josephus and the redaction of the Mishnah.

That's why I am saying that its more likely that the Masoretes only created a system of diacritics to represent the vowels that were already known but previously not represented in writing.

So that's why I understood Josephus to either be saying that the letters of the Tetragrammaton were vocalized with four vowels or and what I think is more likely, its a mistake and it meant to say four letters.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

So that's why I understood Josephus to either be saying that the letters of the Tetragrammaton were vocalized with four vowels or and what I think is more likely, its a mistake and it meant to say four letters.

Or, since the four characters of the tetragrammaton also served as vowels, perhaps he meant to say vowels.

 

[Tumah]

Or, since the four characters of the tetragrammaton also served as vowels, perhaps he meant to say vowels.

I don't know how to respond to this.