Jun 24, 2007
The Name 'Jehovah' - Fact or Fiction?
Fiction, and let me explain why as our pastor did not too long ago. God's name, YAHWEH (or YHWH in Hebrew) was so sacred to the Jewish people that they dared not speak it, lest in some way they blaspheme it. So to get the Jews in the habit of not saying YAHWEH, the scribes, when they came to God's name in the Scripture, stuck in the vowels of the Hebrew word for father in between the Hebrew consonants YHWH - creating something that, if transliterated into English, would be Jehovah. Well, it so happened that a well-meaning German scholar was translating a piece of the Old Testament, and he came upon God's name, and not knowing what had happened with the word, translated it into Jehovah. And as we know, this name has spread throughout the whole world as God's name, when in reality, it is little more than a senseless word. God's true name, YAWEH, implies the idea of the great I AM, the Ruler, the God - Supreme over all. Let us restore to our great God His true name - YAHWEH.
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2 comments:
Maybe not.
I don't know the identity of the "well-meaning German scholar" to whom you refer, but the Wikipedia article on Jehovah points out that it is first used in 1278 by a Spanish monk. (Since as far as we know the Jews never attempted to pronounce the Divine Name.)
Furthermore, Laird Harris argues that "Yahweh" is an "incorrect
hybrid form" and that "Jahoweh" might be the true pronunciation. ("The Pronunciation of the Tetragram,"
in John H. Skilton (ed.), The Law and the Prophets.)
John,
You bring up some very interesting arguments, I shall have to look into them. In fact, although I think that I still hold to my article, I should have investigated the matter further in the first place. =) Thanks!
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