Bible Study Pronunciation!

[JohnDB]

One of those annoying things when I listen and have careful conversation with others about scriptures is when others have either murdered the pronunciation or caused me to because if I pronounce it correctly no one knows what I am talking about.

Let's take Bethlehem for example.

Beth...the t and the h don't combine...both need to be pronounced separate.

Most every Hebrew word has the accent on the second or third syllable...very very rarely is it on the first. Soooo most people pronounce Torah wrong.

One last thing...

"ph" is just like the "th" mentioned above. Both letters don't combine to make the f sounds.

Soooo
Sapphira is sap-hear-a

And when talking about Annanias and Sapphira... everyone gets her name wrong.

 

[stovebolts]

Ha, I'm guilty as charged!

 

[chessman]

One of those annoying things when I listen and have careful conversation with others about scriptures is when others have either murdered the pronunciation

Aumen!

 

[th1b.taylor]

Proper enunciation has always been large on my list. i loved speaking in the native tongue of my Grandfather and Willie, his brother. Since my birthday this year I have been been sharpen9inhg up my Paleo-Hebrew pronouciation and, much, to my surprise it is a Gluteral Tongue much like speaking Duetch. It is driving me deeper into YHWH's word and that is not bad at all, I believe. Ever6y time I hear somebody pronounce YHWH as I do Yahweh I keep silent but cringe inwardly because it is not revering Him to never even bother to learn His real name and is such a stark expression of where we have fallen to in our society. We treat our Elohim (God) like one of the boys at the local Tavern.

Te single most important lesson I learned from traveling the World as a young soldier was to learn to enunciate people's names correctly even if it ties knots in your tongue. It is always appreciated and shows respect for the other person. In German the great composer's name b a c h is not pronounce with a soft ch as in church. The same is true of Paleo Hebrew. the ch, h, k and I'm still learning, are all a hard K sound. The d when underlined is pronounced as a soft th sound.

I was welcomed the first day I walked into a small village in Duetchland, Gerfmany, because I did not flash my money aqnd I wanted to know the people. That first day, a local farmer needed an assist that following Saturday with the Honey Wagon aqnd none in that Guesthaus would be able to assist hyi before the following Saturday, over a week away.

Knowing that I would don chest waders and walk into Horse, Cow, Sheep and Human Waste, I did the shovel work as he drove the horse. Wolfgang and I became fast friends with mutual respect fewe have known.

In the same way, growing closer to God can require getting a little on yourself but I haqve found every one of the mu8ltitude of changes YHWH has walked me through have been so rewarding.

Oh, YHWH is pronounced something like Yak Vak. Thyis has never been a case of vowels being left out and if we follow the established Paleo-Hebrew enunciation, it is learned without much fuss.
Ad if a man that went no further than the Eighth Grade can learn it, almoswt anyone can learn oyr LORD's real name... I think.

 

[JohnDB]

Okay...
Now for two that will hurt your feelings.

Jesus and Joshua actually are the same name...and neither actually has the "J" sound.

Matthew...
There is no consonant blend with the "th".
And the "w" is silent.
It stood out to me when speaking with one of the Coptic Christians from Egypt.
Mat-hhh is the best I can do.

But tell everyone to turn in their Bible's to that book (from the pulpit) and everyone will be lost.

OK....now for a funny one that has been perpetuated into scriptures.

Moses crossed which sea?
We keep calling it The Red Sea...but due to a guide's horrible accent when he said "Reed Sea" it was thought that he was intending "Red". And it became translated into our English translation Bibles in just that fashion.

 

[stovebolts]

Okay...
Now for two that will hurt your feelings.

Jesus and Joshua actually are the same name...and neither actually has the "J" sound.

Matthew...
There is no consonant blend with the "th".
And the "w" is silent.
It stood out to me when speaking with one of the Coptic Christians from Egypt.
Mat-hhh is the best I can do.

But tell everyone to turn in their Bible's to that book (from the pulpit) and everyone will be lost.

OK....now for a funny one that has been perpetuated into scriptures.

Moses crossed which sea?
We keep calling it The Red Sea...but due to a guide's horrible accent when he said "Reed Sea" it was thought that he was intending "Red". And it became translated into our English translation Bibles in just that fashion.

Ha, I was going to ask if you thought Jesus was Hispanic lol!

 

[JohnDB]

Ha, I was going to ask if you thought Jesus was Hispanic lol!

Let's put it this way...
C. O. Jones BBQ will never do well South of the border.

 

[stovebolts]

Let's put it this way...
C. O. Jones BBQ will never do well South of the border.

Ha!

 

[Northman]

And when talking about Annanias and Sapphira... everyone gets her name wrong.

So even names that are actual Greek should have a Hebrew drawl on them?

 

[JohnDB]

So even names that are actual Greek should have a Hebrew drawl on them?

They were Jews...
The New Testament may have been written in Greek and Early Latin but the names are Jewish in origin.

Even Kep-has....AKA Cephas, AKA Peter is still Hebrew.

And as a side note...
Peter is the nominative of Kep-has or stone.
But Peter in Hebrew is maternal first born. (Not necessarily paternal firstborn which has privileges attached to the position)
But Peter as we know it is the late, Latin version of stone.

 

[Northman]

They were Jews...

That I understand. I guess what I'm saying is that I know the name isn't strictly Hebrew and wasn't in practical use, as in other cultures had variations of the name. What I was wondering is if those variations, in the lands they were adopted in and spread, were spoken in the Hebrew drawl as well?

I truly don't know. I can bring up something like https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/greek/4551.html and it doesn't sound anything like what you typed out at all. So who has the market on how it gets said? I mean is this guy a Greek or a Jew? Does it or would it get said the same way in Jerusalem as it would in Corinth at the time?

It's like when I moved to the US. There was all sorts of butchery of even the English language. I just couldn't understand how people were adding what seemed to be an "r" in "wash" that made it sound sorta like "warsh". Or how the long double o sound seemed to not be able to come out of anybody's mouth. To hear the word "roof" get pronounced "ruff" or "rough" was a bit off. Then I met a guy in the school I was going to from the Philippines and introduced himself as what sounded like "hey-soose", and imagine my surprise when I passed one of his papers forward and saw "Jesus" written in the spot for the name. Now while I did have a bit of a chuckle at any and all of this sort of thing, I thought, "man what would someone in England have to say about the way I talk?". I don't think anyone was wrong or anything, they were communicating exactly what they wanted to.

In all seriousness though, JohnDB, do you think that anyone is missing anything by not pronouncing or reading with the accent in mind?

 

[JohnDB]

The English translation is supposed to be transliterated when names are used.

But here in America...we got people from every country under the sun.

Wycliffe and Tyndale started this mess we call an English translation. (They had help) and the rules of translation that they started. These "rules" are kinda hodge podge in how we view them today because of what they had to work with inside of the English language to do the translation and how much the English language has changed in America. (As you noted)

It's like how Yeshuah (Jesus) was actually a tekon (general labor construction worker) and in the forests of England a carpenter fulfilled that role but most likely Yeshuah worked in rock/stone.

 

[th1b.taylor]

Ha, I was going to ask if you thought Jesus was Hispanic lol!

It is, it is but it sounds a lot like Hey Sue!

 

[stovebolts]

It is, it is but it sounds a lot like Hey Sue!

Well, I know I married a Godly woman, but that just brings it up a notch!

 

[Northman]

But here in America...we got people from every country under the sun.

Well America isn't the only immigrant nation. Does that really matter though? I mean even in the UK, you can hear people from generally different areas that had next to no traffic at all having their own brands of English. In Canada as well, you won't hear people on the far east coast sounding anything like people from the middle or west of the country. Judea being conquered over and over again never really running itself except for a sliver in time had to ensure they were not homogeneous.

Wycliffe and Tyndale started this mess we call an English translation. (They had help) and the rules of translation that they started. These "rules" are kinda hodge podge in how we view them today because of what they had to work with inside of the English language to do the translation and how much the English language has changed in America. (As you noted)

This is why I quoted her name specifically. It had already been through a Greek filter. Its the female version of Sapphiros, a Greek name. It's not a mystery to see the how and why Greek anything would influence this area as they had already had their turn dominating this portion of the world. Differences aren't unique to the English language.

is one example where a girl from Germany says in the first 40 seconds that even she has trouble understanding parts of German dialect from different regions of her own country. There are also many different types of Punjab and everyone knows there are different types of Chinese, so it seems to be a global issue.

It's like how Yeshuah (Jesus) was actually a tekon (general labor construction worker) and in the forests of England a carpenter fulfilled that role but most likely Yeshuah worked in rock/stone.

Can you point me in the direction you found this? Everything I've seen to do with the word tekton references a skilled tradesperson(like you, an electrician), not a grunt packin the the tools/fetching things/cleaning up.

I will come right out and say that, based on how things generally roll over time, the Hebrew spoken language probably isn't what it was in the beginning. it probably changed a bit in each exile and over time in general. I can understand pet peeves and whatnot, but it being in the biblical growth and study forum I figured you put it out there as there might be something missing for the rest of us who don't use or even know about that sort of pronunciation. If it's more "people are quoting the Bible and not speaking like a Jew when they do it" then I'll leave you be. If it's not, what are/might we be missing?

 

[JohnDB]

what are/might we be missing?

Word games and play on words.
That's what you are missing.

I've illustrated one above concerning Peter/Cephas.

There's more to this...it becomes really obvious with some things that many people stumble over. And since the world is shrinking it will be very important for the next generation. They are going to be more alone in their faith than we ever were. Their congregations are going to be more mixed nationalities than you can imagine.

And if words and pronunciations are worth nothing...then how will they communicate their faith?

 

[JaneH]

It's like when I moved to the US. There was all sorts of butchery of even the English language. I just couldn't understand how people were adding what seemed to be an "r" in "wash" that made it sound sorta like "warsh". .....Now while I did have a bit of a chuckle at any and all of this sort of thing, I thought, "man what would someone in England have to say about the way I talk?". I don't think anyone was wrong or anything, they were communicating exactly what they wanted to.

I would bet that even people in the time of Jesus had accents and didn't pronounce words the same way! I'm an American who has lived in England for the past 16 years and my head has spun around listening to the strong, strong accents here: Manchester vs Birmingham vs West Country etc. I got my CELTA qualification at a school in London and I absolutely could not get them to understand that words like "draw" and "Saw" and "law" do not end in the r sound (drawr, sawr, lawr) or to use the r sound in other words. And don't even get started on Estuary English where "father" is "favver" and anything ending in "ing" is pronounced "ink" or "in'" and the p sound in the middle of a word is a glottal stop. "Party" sounds like "pa-ee". So don't get too hung up on accents. They've always been with us and always will be. Also here, people say "eye zye ah" where in America we say "Eye zay ah" (Isaiah).

 

[th1b.taylor]

Having a German mother and an Mescalaro Apachee father whose father escaped the US Marshals and US 7th Cavalry into Mexico, I am a credentialed mess with the English Last Name he took when he jumped the Southern Border to avoid some fool trying to collect the fifty dollar reward for his scalp in the early 1900s.

Accents? I believed I had seen the worst possible when at Fort Rucker Alabama with one farmer's son from a few miles north of Mobile. Also training at Ft. Rucker was from the Bronx in New York City, New York. The two of them spoken the American version of English but neither of them, bunked on either side of mine could understand the other and so it was that the only one of us, obviously with no accent at all because I was from Texas translated for them until they began to recognize each other's speech patterns. Then, almost fifty years later I'm waiting on my
First Load in thed Driver's Lounge at 3am when in pops our Imported New Hire and we are talking as everyone stared at him when he broke out in Cockney English complaining about what we have done to the perfectly good language they shipped us to the Colonies. Only then did I realize who spoke the Pooreswt Possible English and they are BOI. (Born On Island)

 

[Northman]

Word games and play on words.
That's what you are missing.

I've illustrated one above concerning Peter/Cephas.

I guess I can kinda see it. Though I won't be calling anyone named Peter Kep-has hehe.

And if words and pronunciations are worth nothing...then how will they communicate their faith?

I don't think words are worth nothing, but effort in understanding others that are different goes a long way, more than trying to get them to say something the same way. You have gone on foreign missions though so that's probably just common knowledge for you.

 

[Northman]

So don't get too hung up on accents. They've always been with us and always will be.

Oh I don't. And yes they are/have been/will.
I get quite the kick out of all the differences. Some people are neat to just listen to.