Gesenius theorizes that "Yahweh" came directly from Egypt - Tregelles rips to shreds - G "thoroughly retracts" something

Steven Avery

Administrator
Gesenius theorizes that "Yahweh" came directly from Egypt - Tregelles rips to shreds - G "thoroughly retracts" something

Gesenius page showing how he actually used the Jupiter connection in favor of the pagan yahveh, placed on Pinterest by Nehemiah Gordon

"To give my own opinion, I suppose this word to be one of the most remote antiquity, perhaps of the same origin as Jovis, Jupiter, and transferred from the Egyptians to the Hebrews." Gesenius' Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon Old Testament Scriptures, translated by Tregelles, 1857, page 337. The words in brackets are the commentary of the translator.
[What an idea! God himself revealed this as his own name; the Israelites could never have received it from the Egyptians]...- Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, translator and commentary

The Gesenius conjectural blunder opens up the Egyptian and Latin paganism theories for "Yahweh". It also is part of showing that Gesenius had little substance in his argumentation.
 
Last edited:

Steven Avery

Administrator
the Gesenius theory is noted

Here was a later summary:

The Presbyterian Quarterly Review, Volume 6 (1857)
MacWhorter on the Memorial Name (Review)
George Rapall Noyes
https://books.google.com/books?id=6-0WAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA90

*The hypothesis of a foreign origin of the name “Jehovah” had not appeared in the third edition of Gesenius' Hebrew and German Manual Lexicon. From this edition, his Hebrew and Latin Manual was revised, and enlarged, and published, A. D. 1833. And here this hypothesis is first broached, very hypothetically, as follows:

“Ut dicam, quod sentio, hoc vocabulum remotissi-mae antiquitatis esse suspicor, nescio an ejusdem stirpis atque Jovis, Jupiter, ab Acgyptiis translatnin ad Hebraeos, ab his autem paululum inflexum, ut formam ct originem semiticam redoleat.”

But in the Thesaurus, A. D. 1839, Gesenius returned to the opinion of his youth, and the received opinion of the world, strongly declaring,

“... oleum fere et operam perdidisse censendi sint, qui peregrinam huic vocabulo originem vindicare vellent.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=XfpEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA578 (1840)

Thus the great philologist began right and ended right, and was gone timidly astray not more—we know not how much less—than six years.
The Bible in the Workshop. Part II. A Refutation of the Second Part of Bishop Colenso's Critical Examination of the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. By Two Working Men, a Jew and a Gentle [i.e. E. Eisenstadt and C. J. Whitmore]. - (1863)
https://books.google.com/books?id=3uRUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA95

The Gesenius theory is noted in a number of spots:

Belgarnie properly doubts the "retraction":

Arkite Workshop (1881)
Robert Balgarnie
https://books.google.com/books?id=TqQCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA91
Gesenius says of the name Jehovah : ‘I suppose this word to be one of the most remote antiquity, perhaps of the same origin as Jovis, Jupiter, and transferred from the Egyptians to the Hebrews.’ Tregelles adds that he ‘afterwards thoroughly retracted this opinion,’ which is doubtful; and Tregelles on such a subject is more to be distrusted than Gesenius.

"Gesenius derives the name of Ihuh from a root huh, which root does not exist in Hebrew."—Gerald Massey

Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World: A Work of Reclamation and Restitution in Twelve Books, Volume 1, (1907)
https://books.google.com/books?id=3k4XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA498
 
Last edited:

Steven Avery

Administrator
early notes

Did the Yahweh error really begin with Gesenius?

The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Volume 25 (1909)
Notes on the Name YHVH
George F. Moore
https://books.google.com/books?id=DaxBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA317

Moore finds a Yahweh-type of form in Gesenius in 1815, 1823, 1825, 1833 and 1839, after an unusual 1810 approach.

In English we have Josiah Willard Gibbs Sr. translating Gesenius in 1824 (also 1827 an 1832), Chrisopher Leo in 1825 and Edward Robinson in 1836 (also 1854.) Later Tregelles in 1860 (and other years).

It would be helpful to look at those editions.

A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: Including the Biblical Chaldee from the German Works of Gesenius (1824)
translated by Josiah Willard Gibbs Sr
https://books.google.com/books?id=He8tAAAAYAAJ

Jehovah is on five pages, there is no Yahweh or Yahveh.

Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr. (1790-1861)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Willard_Gibbs,_Sr.

=====

A Hebrew Lexicon to the Books of the Old Testament: Including the Geographical Names and Chaldaic Words in Daniel, Ezra, Etc, Volume 1 (1825)
Christopher Leo
https://books.google.com/books?id=1t1EAAAAcAAJ

Jehovah is on five pages, there is no Yahweh or Yahveh
===


A Hebrew and English lexicon of the Old Testament,
including the Biblical Chaldee.
Tr. from the Latin of William Gesenius. By Edward Robinson. (1836)
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001231757

Edward Robinson (1794-1853)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Robinson_(scholar)

Jehovah commonly used.
 
Last edited:

Steven Avery

Administrator
Seyffarth
https://books.google.com/books?id=lPgDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA123
Die Grundsätze der Mythologie und der alten Religionsgeschichte sowie der hieroglyphischen Systeme de Sacy's, Palin's, Young's, Spohn's, Champollion's, Janelli's und des Verfassers: eine berichtegende Beilage zu der Schrift des Herrn Prof. Dr. Movers, Untersuchungen über die Religion der Phönizier und zu dessen Antikritik (1843)

1687903337637.png


B. Gesenius Thesaurus .577 nicht gelesen habe, wo dieser sagt:

„In hac igitur explicatione (Hebrew) antiquitus recepta (v. supra Clem. Al. et Epiph.) acquiesci potest, eo magis quum oleum fere et operam perdidisse censendi sint, qui peregrinam huic vocabulo originem vindicare vellent. Nam neque in Phonicia (''leveo apud Phil. Bybl. I. c. est ipse Hebraeorum V. T.) neque in Aegypto vetere (Iaw Gnosticorum est (Heb) V. T.) vestigia ejus reperta sunt: neque eorum opinio, qui et (Heb) et Jovis ( unde Ju-piter ) ex antiquissimo quodam fonte orientali fluxisse coniecerunt, magna veri specie gaudet. Sonach hat also Rec. weder zum Lobe noch zum Tadel des Verf. eine „Luge“ gesagt.
 
Last edited:
Top