Claims
What the corpus asserts, and how firmly
Claims are the smallest citable units of argument. Each states its epistemic status, a support level, a caveat, and the sources behind it.
The Mesha Stele has YHWH written as a four-letter name by the ninth century BCE.
No vowel pointing; do not infer Yahweh directly from this inscription.
Elephantine textual evidence contains independent shortened spellings YHW and YHH.
Precise pronunciation not directly encoded by consonants.
Hebrew personal names preserve prefix Yeho-/Yo- and suffix -yahu/-yah traditions.
Masoretic vowels may differ from older speech and some spellings are regionally conditioned.
Theodoret reports Iabe for Samaritans and Aia for Jews in the fifth century CE.
Alternative interpretations of Samaritan reporting exist.
4Q120 represents the divine name with Greek ΙΑΩ.
This need not represent the full independent pronunciation.
Clement Iaou vs Iaoue requires direct manuscript and critical-edition collation.
This seed database has only a secondary discussion of the manuscript disagreement.
Masoretic vowel pointing of YHWH participates in a standing reading convention.
Pointing associated with Adonai/Elohim is not automatic evidence of ancient full-name vowels.
Yahweh is the dominant modern academic reconstruction of the complete YHWH name.
Scholarly reconstruction is not demonstrable certainty.
Yahwoh is explicitly entertained by an academic epigraphist citing Caquot.
Caquot 1966 original must be checked before formal endorsement.
Egyptian Shasu Yhw is a place/people designation whose connection to Israelite YHWH remains disputed.
Earlier date does not automatically equal earlier divine-name attestation.
Exodus 3:14–15 explicitly connects ehyeh and YHWH in its theological narrative.
Biblical wordplay is not proof of original morphological etymology.
Historical Hebrew waw is generally reconstructed with /w/, whereas modern vav often has /v/.
Actual realization in different settings and periods is complex.
Theophoric name suffixes show meaningful diachronic distribution of -yahu vs -yah.
Frequency in transmitted biblical books does not directly equal original oral patterns.
No candidate full-name pronunciation is directly secured by Iron Age Hebrew consonantal inscriptions.
Combinations of independent transcriptions and language reconstruction remain necessary.
Both YHW-from-YHWH and YHWH-from-YHW origin scenarios have been considered.
Neither chronological direction can be established from this evidence set.
Ketef Hinnom amulets preserve early divine-name use in Judahite blessings.
Letter readings and paleographic dates should be checked against editions.
Glosses of theophoric names are semantic interpretations, sometimes debated, not phonetic records.
Name glosses should never be scored as direct proof of complete divine-name vocalization.