Talk:Wilhelm Gesenius

Nordhausen, Hanover

The original Britannica article says that Gesenius was born in 1786 "Nordhausen, Hanover".

Was this city related administratively to Hanover then? I see that now it is in Thuringia, but close to the border with Lower Saxony of which Hanover is the capital. Can anyone please clarify this?

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 06:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nordhausen itself was a free city until 1802, when it was occupied by Prussia. It became part of the Prussian province of Saxony, which lasted until WW2. There was a Hanoverian enclave just north of Nordhausen, but I think Britannica was simply mistaken. Markussep ^Talk 09:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Punic

This article has a link to Phoenician languages, but the title of the link is "Punic". There is an article called Punic language; is there a problem to link to that directly?

I am not being bold and linking, because i know that it is still a controversial issue in which i am not an expert.

Any help would be appreciated. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Punic, properly so called, is the Carthaginian dialect. The article on Phoenician language is fuller, and may be more helpful to any reader who wants to pursue this obsolete error. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Preferment

Just wanted to share a thought: I thought of changing Britannica's original "in spite of many offers of high preferment elsewhere" to "in spite of many attractive offers from other Universities" to make the style more modern. I'm not a native English speaker, but i'm quite experienced and it's the first time that i see the word "preferment".

And then i decided to leave it as is. "Preferment" is a perfectly good word and if it doesn't appear much anymore, i don't want to be the one who kills it. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've certainly seen it before. --TimNelson (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Two Gesenius Lexicons?

In open Bible discussions, I have seen reference to 2 different works: Gesenius' Lexicon and the Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) Lexicon. I have learned that they were both from Gesenius. After researching the matter, I refined the description of those two works, both derived from the Lexicon Manuele. The write-up that I am displacing appears identically on many other places on the Internet, lending it a kind of mob-weighted legitimacy. But my information appears in the prefaces of the two volumes before me, and are cited at the bottom of this Wiki page.Mbanak (talk) 18:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thesaurus

I'm having trouble finding much information about the Thesaurus. Was it ever translated? -- TimNelson (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to take such a long time to respond to a question such as this, TimNelson: No, the Thesaurus Philologicus Criticus Linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti never received an English translation. The largest work of Gesenius to receive an English translation was the Lexicon Manuale Hebraicum et Chaldaicum in Veteris Testamenti Libros, which was as close to the Thesaurus as one could get without having the Thesaurus. Stephen Walch (talk) 13:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Slowest conversation ever (on my part as well :) ). TimNelson (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

and now?

The articles on a number of authors in all fields discuss their reputation at present. If you write a section on that for Gesenius, start with Munro's Samaritan Pentateuch and Textual Criticism from 1815, a response to Gesenius 1815 work on the Samaritan Pentateuch. It's on Internet Archive. 108.18.136.147 (talk) 11:26, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Link to BDB as per Gesenius' "crediting"

Before I end up engaging in an edit-war with those of limited knowledge, here is what BDB says in its יהוה section:

• יהוה i.e. יַהְוֶה n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel—( 1. MT יְהוָֹה6518 (Qr אֲדֹנָי), or יֱהוִֹה305 (Qr אֱלֹהִים), in the combinations אדני יהוה & יהוה אדני (vid. אֲדֹנָי), and with prep. בַּיהוָֹה, לַיהוָֹה, מֵיהוָֹה (Qr בַּאדֹנָי, לַאדֹנָי, מֵאדֹנָי), do not give the original form. 𝔊 and other Vrss follow the Qr. On the basis of Ex 20:7; Lv 24:11 יהוה was regarded as a nomen ineffabile (vid. Philo de Vita Mosis iii, 519, 529), called by the Jews הַשֵּׁם and by the Samaritans שׁימא. The pronunciation Jehovah was unknown until 1520, when it was introduced by Galatinus; but it was contested by Le Mercier, J. Drusius, and L. Capellus, as against grammatical and historical propriety (cf. Bö 88). The traditional Ἰαβέ of Theodoret and Epiphanius, the ־יָהוּ, יְהוֹ־ of compound n.pr. and the contracted form יָהּ, all favour יַהְוֶה (cf. יַהֲלֹמ֑וּן ψ 74:6; תַּהֲרוּ Is 33:11), v. Lag. i. 14 Baudissin i. 179 ff.; Dr i. 1 ff. For Jeve v. Sta 1881, 346 De ib. 1882, 173 f. & Gn. Excurs. ii

Please note that this is from the BDB Lexicon - not Gesenius' original.

Where exactly does BDB "credit" Gesenius with "the reconstructed pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton [as] Yahweh"? Whilst BDB is based on Gesenius Lexicon, it however goes far beyond what he wrote, and does in fact remove quite a lot of his words. Gesenius also never wrote "Yahweh".

Keep to the facts for Gesenius; not hearsay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen Walch (talk • contribs) 23:04, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me again! The WP article on the Tetragrammaton, on the section called "Yahweh", (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton#Yahweh) says precisely this:

• The Hebrew scholar Wilhelm Gesenius [1786–1842] suggested that the Hebrew punctuation יַהְוֶה‎, which is transliterated into English as Yahweh, might more accurately represent the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton than the Masoretic punctuation "יְהֹוָה‎", from which the English name Jehovah has been derived. His proposal to read YHWH as "יַהְוֶה" (see image to the left) was based in large part on various Greek transcriptions, such as ιαβε, dating from the first centuries CE but also on the forms of theophoric names. In his Hebrew Dictionary, Gesenius supports Yahweh (which would have been pronounced /jahwe/, with the final letter being silent) because of the Samaritan pronunciation Ιαβε reported by Theodoret, and because the theophoric name prefixes YHW /jeho/ and YW /jo/, the theophoric name suffixes YHW /jahu/ and YH /jah/, and the abbreviated form YH /jah/ can be derived from the form Yahweh.[11] Gesenius's proposal to read YHWH as יַהְוֶה is accepted as the best scholarly reconstructed vocalised Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton.[12]]

Look at the 2 references there too. On the left side of this text there is an image with "Gesenius punctuation" of the Hebrew Tetragammaton with a link pointing directly to Gesenius' own page, right here. Are you saying that this is all incorrect information? If it is, and until everything is corrected and clarified there, I don't think the text you removed should be removed from here. It should be reinstated, I believe, based on the WP referenced information quoted above. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:36, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but did you even bother to check that reference? Page 218 in BDB is the EXACT SAME QUOTE AS ABOVE. Essentially that entire reference point there on the Yahweh page is also wrong. Also note that their second reference states: "Note 1: In our translations, we have used Yahweh, a form widely accepted by scholars, instead of the traditional Jehovah". Where does that second reference make any mention of Gesenius? Don't use Wiki to correct wiki! I'll be removing that on the Yahweh page as well. Thanks for notifying me of another incorrect reference to BDB for Gesenius. The proposed for "Yahweh" was given 100+ years before Gesenius. See the new reference I put on the Yahweh article.Stephen Walch (talk) 17:50, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting the Tetragrammaton page assertion, which is what I started from when I first reverted your deletion here. Thank you for posting the BDB page above so it can be studied in more detail. Now that your correction is out in the open at the main Tetragrammaton page, I will be looking forward to seeing what other specialist say about it there. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:12, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

P.S. - No matter how this debate ends, I still believe that Gesenius will deserve a mention as being the first to publish the theory? Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:16, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me again! Note 11 on the previous text of the Tetragrammaton page that is reproduced above, and which you have now modified to point to a 1706 Latin source, read as follows (before your modification):

• - A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament with an appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic, written by Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver and Charles Augustus Briggs, based on the Hebrew lexicon of Wilhelm Gesenius as translated by Edward Robinson, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1906, s. 218.

This means that BDB, on which you purport to be the specialist, is basically an English translation of the original German Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon. I.e., it is an English translation of Gesenius' work in German, but the work is still Gesenius's, and not BDB's. And the page on BDB that is linked/pointed to above (p. 218, which you also reproduced above for better clarity), is definitely where Gesenius/BDB suggested what the correct punctuation and therefore also pronunciation of YHWH should be.

Now, the Latin source that you introduced, I have not idea what it says, and how it says it. But I can see that in the title of the work the pronunciation used is still the original one (pronunciatione nominis Jehova), the one that was used before Gesenius' very clearly and cogently articulated suggestion/correction.

Also, to replace an English source reference with a Latin source from 1706, looks to me akin to giving a primary source, instead of the reliable secondary source that was there originally. Giving a primary source (and not reproducing the page referenced, as the original note did) looks to me here akin to original research.

Can you provide a reliable secondary source that corroborates your assertion that the first to suggest the correct punctuation/pronunciation was not Gesenius, but it was this other rather unknown author of the 1706 Latin work (Hadrani Relandi)? If you do not possess such a secondary reliable source that says what you are saying all along above, then I would have to consider your entire argument above as based on a primary source, and as really being original research. And, if that is the case, I would still insist on going back to the original Gesenius/BDB page above as being the first German/English suggestion of the correct punctuation for YHWH. This, instead of the Latin reference you are now giving, and that for all purposes cannot really be verified (at least by me). Thank you for you attention to this request. Sincerely, warshy ^(¥¥) 22:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

The Latin source I provided is exactly the same source that Gesenius essentially just represents in both his Hebrew-German Lexicon, his Hebrew Lexicon Manuale, and his Thesaurus - From the Lexicon Manuale (page 337): "Others, as Reland (decad. exercitatt. de vera pronunciatione nominis Jehova, Traj. ad Rh. 1707, 8.), following the Samaritans, suppose that יַהְוֶה was anciently the true pronunciation." This is my source (where I referenced), and the source of where Gesenius just merely reports on the different vowel-points that they were discussing. You can see the vowel points in the Reland book on pages 233, 316, 317, 422 (a small selection), and you can even find Jahveh (=Yahweh) on pages 208 and 509. You don't have to read Latin to be able to see that. Gesenius didn't make up any vowel points, and he certainly didn't make up "Yahweh", hence Gesenius cannot "be credited with the reconstructed pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton as Yahweh." That book takes that credit. Gesenius points to this source in all his different lexicons, and even says in his German edition that this book from 1707 is where people can find "all about the controversy" regarding the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.

(Ger): Ueber die ganze Controvers s. Hadr. Relandi decas exercitationum philologicarum de vera pronunciatione nominis Jehova, quarum quingque priores [Drusii, Amanae, Cappelli, Burtorfii, Allingii, welcher Reland selbst beystimmt] lectionem Jehova impugnant, posteriores [Fulleri, Gatacheri, Leusdeni tres] tuentur. Traj. ad Rhenum 1707, 8.

(Eng): About the whole controversy, see Hadr. Relandi decas exercitationum philologicarum de vera pronunciation nominis Jehovah, quaquen quingque priores [Drusii, Amanae, Cappelli, Burtorfii, Allingii, which Reland himself states] lectionem Jehovah impugnant, posterior [Fulleri, Gatacheri, Leusdeni tres] tuentur , Traj. ad Rhenum 1707, 8 .

Hebräisches und chaldäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament Fourth Edition, columns 745-746

Furthermore, whilst BDB is "based" on Gesenius Lexicon, it was and is nothing like his Lexicon anymore, as the three scholars whose names BDB stand for - F. Browns, S. Driver, and C. Briggs - added a lot more to it, and also removed quite a lot of Gesenius' words. The BDB lexicon is no longer a Gesenius lexicon, but certainly a BDB Lexicon. Proof is in the fact that the reference to the Reland book is now missing from BDB, so being "based" on Gesenius' Lexicon means just that - based, not just an English translation. Lastly, nowhere does BDB credit Gesenius with anything, so it cannot be used as reference source. So, my "reliable secondary source" is Gesenius himself - he points us to the very book to read, and to which I followed Gesenius to find. No one has provided a primary or secondary source that credits Gesenius with the reconstruction of "Yahweh", mainly because of the fact that it wasn't him. Also, Hadrani Relandi is hardly an unknown author. His full, anglicised name is Adriaan Reland, and was a well respected scholar in the late 17th/early 18th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaan_Reland . There's a lot of misunderstanding around about Gesenius and Yahweh, and Wikipedia should not be promoting things which are categorically false. Stephen Walch (talk) 13:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Wow! Very nice scholarship indeed. Thank you for explaining all your sources and reasoning very clearly. You do indicate the pages on Reland's book where one may find his argument, and you translated the Gesenius reference to Reland's 1706 Latin book (which, by the way, is not listed in the list of his works in his page). You are at least not shy in admitting that this is indeed your original research, since you say that the way you got to Reland's book was "to which I followed Gesenius to find." And you are also saying that your secondary source is Gesenius himself, which had been previously very clearly credited by some Wikipedia editors as the source for the punctuation that is now used by Hebrew Bible scholarship, and is even the base for the English word/term under which the Tetragrammaton is explained in English (Yahweh). So, basically, your research shows that Gesenius said that Reland got it (the correct punctuation/pronunciation) from the Samaritans, and he believed that Reland was correct, and so he added some additional arguments for the Samaritan/Reland pronunciation (such as prefixes and suffixes and theophoric names, etc.) and articulated the whole theory very explicitly and very cogently in his German Lexicon. Nineteenth century German Bible criticism (i.e., Julius Wellhausen, etc.) certainly must have taken the whole argument as very cogently articulated by Gesenius (and probably not from Reland), and from there we have modern Hebrew Bible scholarship as represented today in Wikipedia. So, in my view, from your scholarhip, Gesenius did have a significant role in the development of current scholarship as it stands, and this role still needs to be acknowledged somehow in Wikipedia. As time permits, I intend to pursue this a little further. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 15:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually, Gesenius doesn't say which vocalisation he thought was correct in either his German or Latin Lexicons; he merely reports on what others had said, taking all his information from that Reland book. In said Reland book, you'll find references to the prefixes and suffixes of Theophoric names, and also the shortened form of the name YAH (pp. 25-28, 339-343 etc.). Gesenius in fact said nothing new: he merely repeated the arguments that can be found in the Reland book. I should just clarify that the Reland book is a multi-author volume, with several authors arguing for one of the three main pronunciations (Yaho, Yahweh, Yehovah). All we can really credit Gesenius with is translating their arguments from Latin into German. But then we'd have to credit Tregelles with promoting "Yahweh", as he translated Gesenius's Latin into English. Stephen Walch (talk) 16:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, very good. So maybe with time we can do exactly that, as you are suggesting. The whole point here is that translations do play a substantial role also in the sedimentation of knowledge over time... Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:04, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually, Gesenius proposes two hypotheses to the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton:

1) יַהֲוֶה, from ΙΑΒΕ.

2) יַהֲוֹה, from ΙΑΩ.

“יָהּ Jah a word abbreviated from יְהֹוָה Jehovah, or rather from the more ancient pronunciation יַהֲוֹה or יַהֲוֶה”.

“Several consider that יַהֲוֹה is the true pronunciation (according to the analogy of יַעֲקֹב, פַּרְעֹה), rightly appealing to the authority of certain ancient writers, who have stated that the God of the Hebrews was called ΙΑΩ (Diod. i. 94: ἱστοροῦσι .... τοὺς νόμους διδόναι—παρὰ δὲ τοὺς Ἰουδαίους Μωσῆν τὸν ΙΑΩ ἐπικαλούμενον θεόν. Macrob. Sat. i. 18. Hesych. v. Ὀζείας, intp, ad Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 666. Theod. quæst. 15 ad Exod.: καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτό Σαμαρεῖται ΙΑΒΕ [יַהֲוֶה] Ἰουδαῖοι δὲ ΙΑΩ)”.
Andres mbaraka (talk) 20:13, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

*bangs head against wall.* Will you please re-read the entire discussion above between myself and Warshy. Again, Gesenius DOES NOT PROPOSE THOSE TWO HYPOTHESIS BUT THEY WERE IN FACT PROPOSED AT LEAST 100 YEARS BEFORE! Blinkin' heck I even told you the exact book to go and find: Adriaan Reelant: Decas Exercitationum Philologicarum De Vera Pronuntiatione Nominis Iehova. You can even buy a reproduction of it from Amazon. Just use the title I've just given. To reiterate: Gesenius himself proposes nothing, but merely repeats what others before him stated. I even gave you some example pages where you can go and see for yourself. Note that he says "Several consider that..." not "I propose that..." Again, Gesenius gives no personal proposal for the pronunciation, but merely repeats what others before him had long before being arguing. Please learn the discipline of checking sources, and sources of sources. Stephen Walch (talk) 22:17, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I am wrong in the expression "Gesenius proposes". What I meant to say is that Gesenius supports the conjectures I have mentioned. Excuse me, rookie mistake. Andres mbaraka (talk) 23:03, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Again, Gesenius doesn't support any of the conjectures over the others in question. For YAHO he says: Several consider that יַהֲוֹה is the true pronunciation, rightly appealing to the authority of certain ancient writers[.]; for YAHWEH he says: Others, as Reland, following the Samaritans, suppose that יַהְוֶה was anciently the true pronunciation, and they have an additional ground for the opinion in the abbreviated forms יָה֫וּ and יָהּ. And for YEHOVAH he says: Also those who consider that יְהֹוָה was the actual pronunciation, are not altogether without ground on which to defend their opinion. In this way can the abbreviated syllables יְהוֹ and יוֹ, with which many proper names begin, be more satisfactorily explained. Any statement which would give the impression Gesenius favoured any conjecture above another is entirely groundless. Stephen Walch (talk) 05:56, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

References:

References