An open evidence atlas of the divine name
Every witness. Every reading.
One set of rules.
yhwh.cc collects what the inscriptions, papyri, manuscripts and traditions actually show about the name ΧΧΧΧ. Each entry is labelled by the kind of evidence behind it, so you can see where attestation ends and reconstruction begins.
What kind of claim is this?
Five evidence tiers, used everywhere
Colour and shape always mean the same thing: on chips, map markers, graph nodes and matrix cells. A form is never just βtrueβ or βfalseβ. It is attested, transmitted, reconstructed, hypothesised or disputed, and the site says which.
Read directly on an ancient object or in a critical edition of one. Says what is written, not how it was pronounced.
Preserved through later copying, reading traditions, or an author's report of other people's usage.
An inference or synthesis published by named scholars. Attributed, never presented as a reading.
A proposed form or claim with no attested witness yet. Documented under the same rules as every other entry.
A reading, identification or manuscript status that is contested, unverified, or awaits direct collation against an edition or image.
Explore
Six ways into the evidence
Journey of the Name
A guided passage through the witnesses, oldest to latest.
Atlas
Find-sites on a time-sliding map with uncertainty.
Timeline
Date ranges, not false points, for every artifact.
Network
Forms, names, artifacts and sources as a graph.
Evidence matrix
Every pronunciation, compared under the same rules.
Renderings
How translations and traditions write the name.
Pronunciation
11 forms, documented by the same template
Mainstream reconstructions, minority proposals, later historical pronunciations and unattested hypotheses each get the same page structure, listed alphabetically: evidence for, limitations, and what would test it.
Methodological claim C14βNo candidate full-name pronunciation is directly secured by Iron Age Hebrew consonantal inscriptions.β
Read the claim and its sources β
- IEHOAH Proposed form (unattested)
- Yah Related short form (consonants attested; vowels transmitted)
- Yahowah Proposed form (unattested)
- Yahu / Yaho Related short form (consonants attested; vowels transmitted)
- Yahuwah Proposed form (unattested)
- Yahwah Proposed form (unattested)
- Yahweh Mainstream scholarly reconstruction
- Yahwoh Scholarly minority reconstruction
- Yawohah Proposed form (unattested)
- Yehowah Later historical pronunciation
- Yehwoah Proposed form (unattested)
Method
Three rules the corpus never breaks
Consonantal spelling β phonetic reading
Name element β full theonym
Medieval pointing β automatic ancient vowels
Contribute
Bring a witness, a correction or a hypothesis
Submissions go through open review on GitHub. Readings can become verified; hypotheses can only become documented, never ranked by votes.