Dear Chavoux, The claim made in your book seems to be correct. Based on the (not all that many) inscriptions that we have, it would seem that the preferred Yahwistic abbreviated form in Iron-Age northern Israel was indeed YW, while the Judahite equivalent was YHW. Strangely enough, in post-exilic times, the form YH was used in both Judah and Samaria.
These distinctions are not reflected in the MT of the Bible. The YW ending does not appear at all. Names in which the theophoric element is a prefix, such as Yonatan or Yoram, are just as often spelled Yehonatan and Yehoram. Names with YHW endings are often rendered YH - Eliyahu/Eliyah. This apparently reflects the post-exilic editing of whatever pre-exilic sources the biblical writers were using. Interestingly enough, in the most recent issue of Israel Exploration Journal - 60,2 (2011), pp. 188-203, Gary Rendsburg and Bill Schniedewind suggested that such features as the spelling R(W "his fellow" - instead of the expected R(HW - in the Siloam tunnel inscription might mean that the writers, and thus also the workmen who dug the tunnel itself, were northern Israelite refugees who had come to Jerusalem. Yigal Levin -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chavoux Luyt Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 10:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [b-hebrew] Northern and Southern Hebrew? I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but maybe somebody could point me in the right direction? In one of my Biblical Archaeology books the claim is made (pretty convincingly) that a difference in dialect between the Northern (Israel) and Southern (Judah) kingdom can be seen in Iron Age (split kingdom era) archaeological remains. Specifically, the bullae (seals) with personal names shows that names with the divine Name as part of it, use mostly Yod Waw in the North, but Yod He Waw in the South. Is there any indication in the Hebrew Bible of a similar difference? (E.g. between the prophets in the North vs. those in the South). Or has all differences between the two "dialects" been removed by later scribes? Regards Chavoux Luyt _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
