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There is much debate as to what our Heavenly Father and Creator's Name is in respects to how it is to be pronounced and spelled. I use the English transliteration or transcription Yahweh simply because this is the most accepted among scholars of the Hebrew language. I feel that I must use some form of His Name since Scripture teaches that we are to set apart ("hallow {make holy}, sanctify"), revere ("fear"), remember, think upon, wait upon, walk in, trust in, love, seek, declare (proclaim), bless, publish, call upon, sing unto, praise, esteem ("glorify"), make known ("manifest"), and know His Name.
To declare the Name Yahweh in Zion, and Hispraise in Yerusalem; When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve Yahweh (Psalm 102:21-22).
I will praise Yahweh according to His righteousness: and will sing praise to the Name Yahweh most high (Psalm 7:17 & 113:3).
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, andblessHisName (Psalm 100:4).
Sing unto Yahweh, blessHisName; show forth His redemption at all times (Psalm 96:2).
Therefore MypeopleshallknowMyName: therefore they shallknow in that time that I am He that speaks: behold, it is I (Isayah 52:6).
So will I make My set apart Name known in the midst of My people Yisryl; and I will not let them pollute My set apart Name any more: and the nations shall know that I am Yahweh, the Set Apart One in Ysryl (Yechetzqyah [Ezekiel] 39:7).
Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know Mine hand and My might; and they shall know that My Name is Yahweh (Yeremyah 16:21).
Give unto Yahweh the esteem due unto His Name: bring an offering, and come into his courts (Psalm 96:8; also cf. 29:2; 1 Chronicles 16:29).
Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek Your Name O Yahweh (Psalm 83:16). But let all those that put their trust in You rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them: let them also that love Your Name be joyful in You (Psalm 5:11).
Then they that revered Yahweh spoke often one to another: and Yahweh paid attention, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that revered Yahweh, and that thought upon His Name (Malakyah [Malachi] 3:16).
I will praise You for ever, because You have done it: and I will wait on Your Name; for it is righteous before Your saints (Psalm 52:9).
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the Name of Yahweh our Almighty One (Psalm 20:7 & 119:55).
Who is among you that reveres Yahweh, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the Name Yahweh, and stay upon his Almighty One (Isayah 50:10).
But unto you that revere My Name shall the light of righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall (Malakyah [Malachi] 4:2).
But when he sees his children, the work of My hands, in the midst of him, they shall set apart My Name, and set apart the Set Apart One of Yaaqob, and shall revere the Almighty One of Ysryl (Isayah 29:23; ).
And he said unto them, When you commune, say, Our Father which is in heaven, set apart be Your Name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so in earth (Luke 11:2; Mattithyah [Matthew] 6:9).
There
are some who claim Yahshua never
spoke Yahweh’s personal Name and never taught anything about it. The
Scriptures
below will demonstrate this is simply not true. Indeed, there is
evidence to
support that he did speak the Name
Yahweh and teach and heal using it.
Father, esteem
Your Name. Then came there
a
voice from Heaven, “I have indeed esteemed it, and will esteem it
again.” (Yahchanan [John] 12:28)
Accordingly,
pray
in this manner:Our
Father Who is in Heaven,may
Your Name be consecrated (Mattithyah [Matthew] 6:9).
I
have made known Your Name to the men that You gave me from out of the world. They were Yours, and
You given
them to me, and they have kept Your word (Yahchanan [John] 17:6).
While
I was
with them in the world, I kept them in Your Name. Those that You gave Me I have kept, and
none of
them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be
fulfilled (Yahchanan [John] 17:12).
And
I have
declared unto them Your name, and will declare it, that the love
wherewith You
have loved me may be in them, and I in them (Yahchanan [John] 17:26).
"Why do you use “Yahweh” for God’s name in
the Old
Testament?
“Yahweh” is the most probable best transliteration of this most holy
proper
name from the Hebrew consonants YOD HE WAW HE, or YHWH. This holy name
is sometimes
rendered “Jehovah” based on the mixture of the vowels for “Adonai”
(Lord) with the consonants “YHWH” as it is written in some later Hebrew
manuscripts. The original Hebrew manuscripts had no vowels, and we
believe that the vowels
for “adonai” were added to reflect the tradition of avoiding
pronouncing God’s
name, and saying “Lord” instead, and was not an indication of how the
name
should be pronounced by those so bold as to actually utter God’s name.
This is a break
from the tradition of the KJV and others that use “LORD”
or “GOD” with all caps or small caps to
translate “YHWH”, and use “Lord” (normal mixed case) to translate
“Adonai” and “God” (normal mixed case) to translate “Elohim.” That
tradition gets really confusing in some places,
especially since “Yahweh” is used in conjunction with “Lord” and “God”
in
many places in the Old Testament. Since God’s proper name really is
separate from the
titles “Lord” and “God” in the original Hebrew, we wanted the English
translation to reflect that fact, even when read aloud. "
YHWH - the Hebrew name of the God of Israel, probably originally pronounced Yahweh. Eventually the Jews gave up pronouncing it, considering the name too holy for human lips. Instead they said Adonai or "Lord." This oral tradition came to be reflected in the written Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint) as kurios or "Lord," and it is often so quoted in the New Testament (Mark 1:3; Rom. 4:8). English versions of the Old Testament also tend to translate this word as "LORD." There is also a shorter form, YAH (Ps. 68:4; Is. 12:2; 26:4; 38:11). In Exodus 3:14-16 YHWH is linked with the verb hayah, "to be," probably referring to the presence of God with His people. (Gal. 5:1). Nelson's Student Bible Dictionary - A Complete Guide to Understanding the World of the Bible, Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, and R. K. Harrison pg. 270
YHWH - Known by the technical term Tetragrammaton (Gk., meaning "four letters") theses are the four consonants which make up the divine name (Exod. 3:15; found more than 6,000 times in the OT). The written Hebrew language did not include vowels, only consonants were used; thus readers supplied the vowels as they read (this is true today even in Hebrew newspapers). Reverence for the divine name led to the practiceAdonai or "Lord." Many translations of the Bible followed this practice. In most English translations YHWH is recognizable where the word LORD appears in caps. of avoiding it's use less one run afoul of commandments such as Exod. 20:7 or Lev. 24:16. In time it was thought that the divine name was to holy to pronounce at all. Thus the practice arose of using the word
In the course of the centuries the actual pronunciation was lost. In the Middle Ages Jewish scholars (Masorete scribes) develaoped a system of sybols placed under and beside the consonants to indicate the vowels. YHWH appeared with the vowels from "Adonai" as a device to remind them to say "Adonai" in the reading of the text. A Latinized form of this was pronounced "Jehovah," but it was actually not a real word at all. From a study of the structure of the Hebrew language most scholars today believe that YHWH was probably pronounced Yahweh (Yah' weh). See God; I am; Jehovah; Lord; Names of God. Mark Fountain - Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
The
Century Bible, Volume
1, pages 90-91, tells us the
following.
Some
time after the return from
the Captivity,
and before the beginning of the Christian Era, the Yahdaim
(Jews)
came to believe that the Holy Name Yahweh was too sacred to be uttered
on ordinary occasions. It was said to be pronounced by the
High
Priest on the Day of Atonement. At other times, when any one
read
or quoted aloud from what is called the Old Testament, the word "Adonay",
"Lord," was usually substituted for YAHWEH, and similarly the
LXX
(Septuagint Version) has Kurios, the Vulgate dominus,
and the e.v. lord, where the Hebrew has YAHWEH. Hebrew was
originally
written without vowels, but when the "vowel points" were added, the
vowels of "Adonay" or "Elohim" were written with YAHWEH, as a
direction that these words were to be read instead of the word whose
consonants were YAHWEH; thus we find the combinations YeHoWaH
and
YeHoWiH. At the Reformation, the former being the more usual, was
sometimes used as the Name of the (Mighty One) of Isryl, and owing to
ignorance of its history was misread as "Jehovah," a form which has
established itself in English, but does not give the pronunciation of
the Holy Name it represents.
Example of the prohibition of the Name Yahweh:
"Havayeh: We never pronounce the four letter name of G‑d as it is written, so we say Havayeh instead, changing the order of the letters." [Yahaveh] SOURCE
(Underlinings and capitalization within the text are mine for emphasis purposes.) Also see hyperlinked text within the text for more information.
YAHWEH ... Based in part on Theodoret of Cyrrhus' memory of the Samaritan pronunciation, the name is generally rendered "Yahweh."
The Masoretes consistently marked the name with vowel signs indicating that the divine name Adonai ("Lord"), or at times Elohim ("God") was to be substituted for it when the Bible was read. Confusion about this custom led to misreading the name as JEHOVAH. In most English versions of the Bible it is translated "Lord."
Although the name Yahweh was first revealed to MOSES in Exod. 3:14, it occurs in the creation story (Gen. 2) and is said to have been used from the time of Seth and Enoch (Gen. 4:26). M. G. ROGERS From: Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions pg. 810.
Tetragrammaton (Gk., 'four lettered'). The four letters, YHWH/JHVH , of the Hebrew name of God. Traditionally the tetragrammaton is not pronounced, and in the biblical text, YHWH is read as *'Adonai' (my Lord) or 'Ha-*Shem' (the Name). The English 'Jehovah' is a vocalization of JHVH, inserting the vowels from Adonai. From: The Oxford Dictioanary of World Religions, Edited by John Bowker pg. 966.
Moses and Monotheism
The Hebrew Bible underscores the leadership of Moses in the wilderness of Sinai during the catalytic events that made Israel a people and at the same time established the exclusive worship of one God, Yahweh.*
* Footnote: In Hebrew, the name is written with four consonants [?], YHWH. The name was considered too sacred to pronounce, and since the vowel sounds were never written, the knowledge of them was lost. In early English translations of the Bible, vowels were supplied by using those from the word Adaonai ("Lord"; this word was regularly SUBSTITUTED for YHWH wherever it appeared) and the name then spelled Jehovah. Modern scholars ordinarily use the spelling Yahweh as probably more accurate. From: The Ancient World - An Historical Perspective (Second Edition) By Henrey C. Boren Pg. 84.
JEHOVAH, ji-ho'va (... properly yahweh): The form 'Jehovah' is impossible, according to the strict principle of Heb. vocalization. It is due to the arbitrary transference of the vowels of adonay, lord', to the sacred name _ _ _ _ after the Jews became over-scrupulous as to the pronunciation of the Name .... A New Standard Bible Dictionary Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York and London, 1936, pg. 418
Judaism
The Bible moves from a restricted view of God as a national deity to a more universal conception of him as the God of "ALL Nations ..." which are but instruments in his hand. This may be seen in the several names of God which are found in the Scriptures, ranging from Shaddai, which seems to signify storm-god, or god of power, Elo'ah, Yah, and Adonai, to the more common Elohim, and YHVH, the tetragrammaton, the last becoming the most sacred divine name (usually translated 'Lord') which was not pronounced by the Jews. (The name 'Jehovah' is a medieval MISREADING and does not occur in the Hebrew Bible.) From: World Religions - From Ancient History to the Present, Chapter Nineteen pg. 386, Editor: Geoffrey Parrinder, Facts On File Publications, New York, New York - Bicester, England.
Yahweh
- “The Masoretes who from the 6th to the 10th century worked to
reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible replaced the vowels of
the name YHWH with the vowel signs of Adonai or Elohim. Thus the
artificial name Jehovah came into being.” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 12, 1993 ed.
“It is clear that the word Jehovah is an ARTIFICIAL COMPOSITE.” The New Jewish Encyclopedia, 1962 ed.
"The word "Jehovah is a HYBRID, arising from a MISUNDERSTANDING. The word "Yahweh," which more nearly corresponds to
the original Hebrew name, is preferable; cp. Bade The Old Testament in the Light of Today (Boston, 1915), pp. 313 f.
The Jehovah's Witness' own Aid to Bible Understanding
says, "The first recorded use of this form [Jehovah] dates from the
13th century C.E. [after Messiah]. Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of
the Dominican order, used it in his book Pugeo Fidei of the year 1270.
Hebrew scholars generally favor ‘Yahweh’ as the most likely
pronunciation" (pp. 884-885).
"While
inclining to view the pronunciation "Yah-weh" as the more correct way,
we have retained the form "Jehovah" because of people's familiarity with
it ..." (The same quote is found in the preface of The Kingdom
Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1969). Steven T. Byington, The Bible in Living English
published by the Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower Bible & Tract
Society in the preface states that the pronunciation Jehovah is "A
BLUNDER".
Following is a bit of information from a book in my personal library.
Jehovah - The name Jehovah for God, which came into being because of an error of reading Hebrew, did not exist as a Hebrew word. It is actually a combination of two Hebrew forms that was caused by a peculiarity of the Hebrew writing system. The Hebrew alphabet consists only of characters for consonants ; vowels are indicated as dots or points written in characteristic positions above or below the consonants. The Hebrew name for God, whose consonants transliterated YHWH was considered so sacred that it was never pronounced, and its proper vowel points were never written. In some text the vowel points for a completely different wordAdonai, "lord," were written with YHWH to indicate that the word Adonai was to be spoken whenever the reader encountered the word YHWH. YHWH was never intended to be pronounced with the vowels of Adonai, but Christian scholars of the Renaissance made exactly that mistake. The forms Iehovah - using the classical Latin equivalents, included I, pronounced (y), of the Hebrew letters - and Jehovah - substituting in English J, pronounced (j), the consonant sound that the letter i represented at that time - came into common use. SOURCE: Word Mysteries & Histories From Quiche To Humble Pie, By the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries, pg. 130, (Underling done by me for emphasis).
Footnote #7: The divine name spelled YHWH and probably to be read 'Yahweh' was not spoken aloud by the Jews (except once a year by the high priest) for fear of blasphemy. In speaking, they usually SUBSTITUTED 'Adonai', usually translated 'Lord' in English versions. It was a combination of the written form YHWH and the vowels of Adonai which gave rise to the English form 'Jehovah'. From: Understanding the Bible - A Guide for Catholics By J. Holland Smith, pg 77.
Where did the name “Jehovah” come from?
“Jehovah” is a mispronunciation of the Hebrew name of
God, resulting from a confusion over what vowels were to be included
when saying the name.
The Hebrew name of God is יהוה (YHWH). This was revealed to Moses by
God in Exodus 6:2-3.
In Hebrew, there are usually no vowels inserted and it is up to the
reader to insert the vowels at the time of reading. Most scholars think
the vowels in the name of God are A and E making Yahweh.
Several centuries before Jesus, Jews stopped pronouncing the name of
God as it was too sacred, and they started to substitute the word Adonay
(Lord) instead whenever they came across the word Yahweh. Then later
editions of the Hebrew scriptures added vowel pointings to guide
readers. For YHWH, the vowels for Adonai were added to remind readers to
read “Adonai” and not “Yahweh”. This actually made a non-word
“Yehowah”.
The Hebrew letter “W” (waw) is now pronounced more like a “V” in
modern Hebrew, and so is often transliterated as a V instead of a W. The
Hebrew letter “Y” (yod) is often historically transliterated as a “J”
due to its pronunciation in late Latin. Consequently, we get the name
“Jehovah” although that was never the original word and probably does
not sound anything like the Hebrew name of God.
From Hugo McCord’s New Testament with Genesis, Psalms, and Proverbs:
An improvement needs to be made by the KJV, the NASV, the NIV, and the NRSV in their use of “LORD” with capital letters as a substitute for God’s personal name: YHWH (Exodus 3:15; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 42:8). The four letters (called the “Tetragrammaton”) erroneously came to be regarded as too sacred for human lips, and consequently the correct pronunciation (which God used in speaking to Moses, Exodus 3:15) died out of human memory.
Orally the rabbis substituted adonay, “Lord,” wherever YHWH appeared in the sacred text, which substitute in Greek became kurios in the LXX. The Vulgate followed suit, using the Latin dominus. In English the KJV generally did likewise, using four capital letters, “LORD,” which pattern has been followed by the NASV, the NIV, and the NRSV.
But the substitute “LORD,” for YHWH introduced a double problem: (1) the word “lord” is not a proper name, only a tittle; and (2) the use of one translation, though one is entirely capitalized, for two different words (YHWH and adonay) is confusing.
Before the Hebrew scholars translated the four letters of God’s name as YHWH they used JHVH, “the sound of Y being represented by J and the sound of W by V, as in Latin” (Bruce M. Metzger, “To the Reader,” preface of NRSV). Petrus Galatinus (confessor of Leo X), using JHVH, in 1518 injected the vowel points of the Hebrew word for “Lord” (e, o, a) into JHVH, and so constructed the word “Jehovah” (A. B. Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament, p. 47). (Grammatically, hateph pathah under a yodth becomes a shewa.) The word “Jehovah” is therefore a hybrid, which “in linguistics” is “a word made up of elements from different languages” (Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary).
About a century after Galatinus, the KJV in 1611 “generally, though improperly, translated” the Teragrammaton “by ‘the LORD’” (Robert Young, Analytical Concordance, p. 536), but in four places (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4) the KJV used Galatinus’ word “Jehovah.” The English Revised Version of 1881 “departed” from the pattern set by the KJV “only in a few passages in which the introduction of a proper name seemed to be required” (Preface, English Revised Version). The impersonal word “LORD” in those “few passages,” the English revisers thought, was inadequate to portray what they called the “ineffable” name. Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines an “ineffable” word as “too awesome or sacred to be spoken, as God’s ineffable name.”
Then the American revisers of 1901 thought that the “ineffable” name should appear not “only in a few passages,” but everywhere that the Tetragrammaton is in the sacred text. So the ASV has the word “Jehovah,” some 6,823 times.
However, scholars in Hebrew have all along “contested” the use of the word “Jehovah,” as being “against grammatical and historical propriety” (Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 218). “The word “Jehovah” does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew” (Bruce M. Metzger, “To the Reader,” preface in NRSV).
There is no way to justify textually the use of the word “Jehovah,” nor the word “LORD.” Historically, however, the use of “LORD” is justified as a substitute because Jesus used the word “LORD” when apparently he was quoting from the LXX’s rendition of the Tetragrammaton (Mt 22:44; Psalm 109:1 in the Hebrew; 110:1 in the English). Similarly, the Tetragrammaton in Isaiah 8:13 becomes “LORD” in Luke 3:4. But textually there is no way to justify the use of the word “LORD” as a translation of the four letters YHWH.
Textually, what vowels are necessary to make the four letters YHWH pronounceable? If the pronunciation is “Yehweh” (“qal” in grammar), the meaning is: “he keeps on being,” a certification of his endlessness and of his self-sufficiency and of his independence. “Beside me, there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6). “From everlasting to everlasting, you are God” (Psalm 90:2). Our hope for non-extinction depends on such a being.
If the pronunciation is “Yahweh,” (“hiphil” in the grammar), the meaning is: “he causes to be,” a certification of his creative power, without which we could not be in existence. “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for you created all things, and they came to be, yes, they were created, because of your desire” (Rev. 4:11).
Brown-Driver-Briggs (ibid) exhibit grammatical constructions in Hebrew text that point only to “Yahweh” as the proper pronunciation. Today Bible scholars agree that “it is almost if not quite certain that the name was originally pronounced ‘Yahweh’” (Professor Bruce M. Metzger, “To the Reader,” preface to NRSV).
This translation has “Yahweh” for YHWH, as in Genesis 2:4; Psalms 1:2; Proverbs 1:7, and “Yah” for YH, as in Psalm 68:4, and “Lord” for adon when the word refers t deity, as in Psalm 114:7, and “lord” for adon when the word refers to a human, as in Genesis 18:12; Psalm 105:21.
The use of “Yahweh” in this translation is an attempt to get back as close as possible to God’s personal name, of which he said to Moses:
“This you will say to the children of Israel: “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations” (Exodus 3:15).
Our grandmother Eve did not think that God’s name is too sacred for human lips, saying, as Cain was born: “With the help of Yahweh, I have a male child!” (Genesis 4:1). It was during the lifetime of her grandson Enosh that “men began to call on the name of Yahweh” (Genesis 4:26). Similarly, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and many others used the memorial name in conversation (Genesis 14:22; 15:2; 24:27; 26:28; 27:27; 28:16; 30:24; 31:49). Reverence for the sacred name was one of the ten commandments: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not pardon anyone who misuses his name” (exodus 20:7). “Holy and awesome is his name” (Psalm 111:9, NRSV). But, for some reason, known only to God, not the pronunciation, but apparently the meaning of his name was first revealed to Moses (exodus 3:13-15; 6:2-3).
Jehovah - The English and common European representation, since the 16th c., of the Hebrew divine name ... This word (the 'sacred tetragrammaton') having coming to be considered by the Jews too sacred for utterance, was pointed in the O.T. by the Masoretes [Jewish scribes] ... with the vowels ... of [adonai] as a direction to the reader to SUBSTITUTE ADONAI for the 'ineffable name'; which id usually done by Jerome in the Vulgate translation of Exodus [6:3], and hence by Wyclif. Students of Hebrew at the Revival of Letters took these vowels as those of the word ... (IHUH, JHVH) itself, which was accordingly transliterated in Latin spelling as IeHoVa (H), i.e. Iehoua'h. It is now held that the original name was IaHUe(H), i.e. Jahve (h, and one or other of these forms is now generally used by writers upon the religion of the Hebrews. ...
1860 PUSEY Min. Proph. 77 It is better to own ignorance, how the name of God is pronounced, than to use the name Jehovah, which is certainly wrong, or any other, which can only be conjectural.
B. Examples of recent forms of the word,
1869 J.E. CARPENTER tr. Ewald's History Israel II. 130 Jahveh alone was the true defense.
1893 MONTEFIORK Hibbert Lect, 45 Yahveh, to the Israelite, was emphatically the God of Right.
1899 R.H. CHARLESEschatol, Heb., Jew & Chr,. 8 As the natural God Yahwe was the invisible head of the nation. From: Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press Vol. H-l pg. 568.
Jehovah - The name Jehovah for God which came into being because of an error in reading Hebrew, did not exist as a Hebrew word. It is actually a combination of two Hebrew forms that was caused by a peculiarity of the Hebrew writing system. The Hebrew alphabet consist only of characters for consonants;
vowels are indicated as dots or points written in characteristic
positions above or below the consonants. The Hebrew name for God whose
consonants are transliterated YHWH, was considered so sacred that it
was never pronounced, and its proper vowel points were never written.
In some text the vowel points for a completely different word Adonai, "lord," were written with YHWH to indicate that the word Adonai was to be spoken whenever the reader encountered the word YHWH. YHWH was never intended to be pronounced with the vowels of Adonai, but Christian scholars of the Renaissance made exactly that MISTAKE. The forms Iehovah - using the classical Latin equivalents, including I, pronounced (y), of the Hebrew letters - and Jehovah - substituting in the English J, pronounced (j), the consonant sound that the letter i represented at the time - came into common use. From: Word Mysteries & Histories - From Quiche To Humble Pie By the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries pg, 130.
After
the Exile (6th century B. C.), especially from the 3rd century B.C. on,
Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh ... As Judaism began to become a
universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world,
the more common noun elohim (q.v.), meaning "god", tended to
replace Yahweh At the same time, the divine name ... was thus replaced
in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai (My Lord) ... (The
New Encyclopedia Britannica: Micropedia, Ready Reference, vol. 10:
p.786).
Before the 16th century the "J" did not exist in any
language of the world. Where did it come from? The J originated as a
variant of I: the I is derived from the Greek iota and the
Semitic yod. The I was used as both a vowel and a consonant. Its
consonantal sound was that of the English y. Sometime in the late 16th
century, printers began to prolong the letter I when it appeared as a
first or last letter of a word. As an initial letter it extended above
and below the line and ended with a curve. As a final form it would
extend below the line, used in Latin forms as "filij", and numerals like
j, ij, iij, vj, viij, xij, etc. In English it was sometimes used where y
had previously been substituted for a final i. It was not until the
17th century that the i was reserved as a vowel and the j as a
consonant, and the capital forms of the letter J were introduced (Oxford
English Dictionary, vol. 5: p. 67).
Jehovah: A mispronunciation (introduced by Christian
theologians, but most entirely disregarded by the Jews) of the Hebrew "YHWH,"
the (ineffable) name of God (the Tetragramrnaton or "Shem
ha-Meforash"). This pronunciation is grammatically impossible ... (ibid.
vol. 7: p. 87).
Jehovah, a hybrid form for the divine name which
originated in the mistaken idea that the consonants of the
Tetragrammaton, YHWH (really pronounced "Yahweh"), were to be
read with the vowel points found with them in the Masoretic Text...
thus by combining these vowels with the consonants of the
Tetragramrnaton, the mongrel form, "Yehowah," came into being, which
with the English consonant j in place of the y and with the German
pronunciation of the w as v, produced in turn the quaint form of
"Jehovah." (Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, p. 1109).
In The Mysterious Name of Y.H.W.H., page 74, Dr. M. Reisel said that the "vocalisation of the Tetragrammaton must originally have been YeHuàH or YaHuàH."
Canon D. D. Williams of Cambridge held that the "evidence indicates,
nay almost proves, that Jahwéh was not the true pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton . . . The Name itself was probably JAHÔH."—Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (Periodical for Old Testament Knowledge), 1936, Volume 54, page 269.
In the glossary of the French Revised Segond Version, page 9, the following comment is made: "The pronunciation Yahvé
used in some recent translations is based on a few ancient witnesses,
but they are not conclusive. If one takes into account personal names
that include the divine name, such as the Hebrew name of the prophet
Elijah (Eliyahou) the pronunciation might just as well be Yaho or Yahou."
In 1749 the German Bible scholar Teller told of some different
pronunciations of God's name he had read: "Diodorus from Sicily,
Macrobius, Clemens Alexandrinus, Saint Jerome and Origenes wrote Jao; the Samaritans, Epiphanius, Theodoretus, Jahe, or Jave; Ludwig Cappel reads Javoh; Drusius, Jahve; Hottinger, Jehva; Mercerus, Jehovah; Castellio, Jovah; and le Clerc, Jawoh, or Javoh."
Following is and excerpt from Asimov's Guide To The Bible Volume 1 The Old Testament Isaac Asimov:
The Lord God
Once the P version of creation is ended, a new version begins;
Genesis 2:4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
The distinctive feature here is the sudden use of the term "Lord God," where throughout the first thirty-four verses the Deity had been referred to as simply "God."
The Hebrew word, here translated as "Lord," is made up of four Hebrew letters, which can be written in English as YHVH, and which are expressed, traditionally but mistakenly, as "Jehovah" for reasons to be given later (*see page 135). Modern scholars believe "Yahveh" is the more accurate presentation.
Where "god" is a general term for any deity, and where the capitalized form "God" expresses the one Deity of the Bible, Yahveh is the specific name of that specific Deity. Names were of considerable importants to ancient man, for they were considered and extension of personality. To be able to pronounce the name was to be able (according to folklore) to control the being named. Names were therefore tools of magic and Jews of the post-Exilic times disapproved of magic, not because they did not believe in its reality, but because the magic was usually performed in the names of heathen idols.
The name of God came to be avoided on principle, therefore. When it did occur in some of the traditional sources of the early books of the Bible or in the writings of the prophets of pre-Exilic times, pious Jews took to saying Adonai ("Lord") instead. This euphemism was excepted in English translation and in what might have been given as "the God, Yahveh" ("Yahveh Elohim") in place of God ("Elohim") is characteristic of a particular early strand of tradition which was incorperated into the Hexateuch. This strand is known as the "J document" because of it's characteristic use of "Jehovah" ("Yahveh") in connection with God.
There is another strand of early tradition which like the P document uses simply Elohim for God, and it is the "E document." Both J and E are much more personal than P, telling stories with circumstantial detail and do not greatly interest themselves in the more formal aspects of the matter.
The J document may have been put into written form as early as the ninth century in the more southerly of the two kingdoms into which the Israelites were then divided. This was the kingdom of Judah. The E document was put into written form a century later in the northern kingdom of Israel.
The dominant tribe in the northern kingdom was Ephraim and that was sometimes used as a poetic synonym for Israel. There is thus the interesting coincidence that the J document can stand for Judah as well as Jehovah, and the E document for Ephraim as well as Elohim.
The northern kingdom was destroyed toward the end of the eighth century B.C. and the priest of Judah incorperated E into their own J tradition. This made the primative history of their ancestors more complete, but also introduced occasional duplications, with the same tale told twice, once with a nothern orientation and once with a southern. Despite the careful dovetailing of verses, such duplicate versions can be dissected and identified.
During and after the Babylonian Exile, the priesthood took this combined JE version, added P material of their own, and produced Genesis as we have it now. It is not my purpose, in this book, to untwine Genesis and identify the source of each verse (something that is done in the Anchor Bible, for instance) but it is well to know that different sources do exist (Pgs. 19-21).
*Jehovah
On Mount Horeb, Moses becomes aware of a bush that is burning steadily but is not consumed. He approaches and God, speaking to him out of the bush, commands him to return to Egypt and to lead the Isarelites out of slavery.
In the process God reveals His personal name:
Exodus 3:14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM ...
The phrase, capitalized as a gesture of respectful awe, is translated I AM WHO I AM in the Revised Standard Version, with a footnote giving alternate readings of I AM WHAT I AM and I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.
Apparently the name of the Lord here is connected with some form of the word "to be," either in the present of future tense, as though the primary nature of God is eternal existence.
Moses returns to Egypt along with his elder brother, Aaron, but his first efforts fail to impress Pharaoh. The Egyptian monarch sharpens the oppression so that the Israelites themselves, who had first hailed Moses, turn against him. God reassures Moses and pronounces his name once more, this time in a briefer version:
Exodus 6:3. ...I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacab, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
The name here given for God is the YHVH I mentioned earlier (see page 20).
In later history, the Jews grew increasingly reluctant to articulate the actual name of God and it became a habitual gesture of respect with them to substitute for the four consonants wherever they occured the respectful title of "the Lord," which in Hebrew is Adonai.
In both the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version this procedure if followed and YHVH is consistently translated as "Lord." Exodus 6:3 is the one place where the King James Version abandons caution and actually makes use of the name of God. The Revised Standard Version does not do so but remains consistant and translates the clause in Exodus 6:3 as "but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them." (The translation from the Masoretic text gives the Hebrew consonants themselves, untranslated, with a footnote directing that it be read "the Lord.")\The name Jehovah is almost universally accepted by English-speaking Christians as the manner of pronouncing YHVH, but that arose by mistake.
It seems as the centuries passed and the Jews of later history spread throughout the east and began to speak Aramaic, Babylonian and Greek, in preference to Hebrew, there grew up the danger that the proper pronunciation of the Biblical language would be forgotten. The Jewish scholars therefore placed little diacritical marks under the Hebrew consonants, indicating the vowel sounds that went with them in each particular word.
For YHVH, however, they did not produce the proper diacritical marks since the name was not supposed to be pronounced anyway. Instead, they wrote the diacritical marks for Adonai, the word that was supposed to be pronounced. Sometime during the Middle Ages, a Christian scholar, supposing that the vowels of Adonai belonged with the consonants YHVH, wrote out the name in full as Jehovah. (The initial J in Latin is pronounced like and initial Y in English.)
This mistake has persisted and will probably continue to persist. Actually, modern scholars seem to have decided that the correct pronunciation of YHVH is Yahveh.
During the greater portion of Old Testament times it was my no means certain that the worship of Yahveh, according to the ritual set forth in the first five books of the Bible (which according to long-accepted tradition, both Jewish and Christian, were wriitten by Moses), would win out among the Israelites. I will in this book, speak of those who believed in the worsip of Yahveh (particularly in the exclusive worship of Yahveh as the only God) as Yahvist (Pgs. 134-135).
Did you know that
the Heavenly Father has a Name? The surprising truth is that the Name
of the Creator of the universe is found 6,823 times in ancient Bible
manuscripts, yet it was concealed by so called "Holy Bible" translators who believed it
was too holy to use. But their own so called "Holy Bible" translations challenges us to discover and use
the ONLY true, personal Name of the Creator and the Name of His son,
our redeemer - the only name of redemption!
Read some startling facts about the Name right out of the pages of the Scriptures.
"Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His son's name, if you know it?" Proverb 30:4.
"I am Yahweh; that is My Name: and My esteem will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images." Isayah 42:8.
"Sing
unto Yahweh, sing praises to His Name: extol Him that rides upon the
heavens by His Name Yah ["JAH" A.K.J.V.] and rejoice before Him." Psalm 68:4.
("Yah" is the last part of the word "halleluYah." HalleluYah is the most ancient of all words of praise and means "praise Yahweh.")
"You
shall not misuse the Name of Yahweh your Almighty One to bring it to naught,
for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless that misuses His Name to bring
it to naught." Exodus 20:7.
(This is the Third Commandment.)
"And you shall not swear by My Name falsely, neither shall you profane the Name of your Almighty One: I am Yahweh." Leviticus 19:12.
"Yahweh….. is My Name forever. And this is My memorial to all generations." Exodus 3:15.
From the Bible Translators and Scholars -
In
the introduction to the Moffat Translation (pp. 20-21), James Moffat
makes it clear that he would have no hesitation about using the Name
Yahweh in his translation if he had intended it for students of the
original Scriptures.
We find in the preface to the Goodspeed
translation: "The Hebrews called their deity by the name Yahweh, and in
shorter form Yah." This source admits to using substitutes for the Name
Yahweh.
The Revised Standard Version says at Exodus 3:15, "The
word of the LORD when spelled with capital letters stands for the
divine name YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, to be."
The
New Catholic Bible (Catholic Bible Press), at Exodus 3:14 notes, "I am
who I am" ; apparently this utterance is the source of the word Yahweh;
the proper, personal name of the God of Israel... , Out of reverence
for this name the term 'Adonai,' 'my Lord,' was used as a substitute.
The word Lord in the present version represents this traditional usage.
The word Jehovah arose from a false reading of this name as it is
written in the current Hebrew text."
In the International Bible
Encyclopedia of the King James Version published by Garden City
Publishing Co., we note the following under the heading "Jehovah": "It
is believed that the correct pronunciation of this word is 'Yahweh.' "
In
the Jewish Encyclopedia (volume 7, p. 88) is this revealing statement:
"The reading Jehovah is a comparatively recent invention. Jehovah is
generally held to have been the invention of Pope Leo the 10th's
confessor, Peter Galatin (De Arcanis Catholic Veritates 1518, Folio
XLIII), who was followed in the use of this hybrid form by Fagius
Drusius."
A new Standard Bible Dictionary states, "Jehovah...
properly Yahweh... the form 'Jehovah' is impossible, according to the
strict principles of Hebrew vocalization." (There was no "J" in the
original Hebrew, nor in Greek for that matter. Modern Hebrew has no
"J".)
From the preface to the Holy Name Bible, published by the
Scripture Research Association, is the following: "Another common error
among most of the translators is their elimination of heaven's revealed
Name of the Most High, Yahweh, and the Name of His Son, Yahshua the
Messiah, and the substitution of the names of the local deities of the
nations among whom they dwelt (Psalm 96:5), expressly transgressing
Yahweh's commandments as given in Exodus 20:7 and 23:13.
"The
substitution of the Names Yahweh and Yahshua by the names of the pagan
deities of the nations has brought immeasurable harm… By employing
these names the people unknowingly turn the worship of Yahweh into that
of idols and actually ascribe the benevolent characteristics of the
Mighty One of Israel to the pagan deities (Hosea 2:8)."
On page
7 of this source we read, "His Name is composed of two parts:
Yah-Hoshua (Savior). Thus the contraction Yahshua signifies
Yahweh-Savior and strikingly bears out the logic of Matthew 1:21."
From Common Secular Sources -
From
the Oxford Cyclopedic Concordance is this on page 121: "Jehovah, the
name revealed to Moses at Horeb… Its real pronunciation is
approximately Yahweh. The name itself was not pronounced Jehovah before
the 16th century."
Encyclopaedia Britannica (Micropedia, vol.
10): Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation
periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries
biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh. Early Christian
writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used the
form Yahweh, thus this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never
really lost. Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be
pronounced Yahweh."
Webster's New World Dictionary - "Yahweh… a form of the Hebrew name in the Old Testament. See Tetragrammaton."
The
New American Encyclopedia notes this under Jehovah, "(properly Yahweh)
a name of the [Mighty One] of Israel, now widely regarded as a
mispronunciation of the Hebrew YHWH."
More from the Bible -
"And
in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no
mention of the name of other mighty ones, neither let it be heard out
of your mouth." Exodus 23:13.
"Our help is in the Name of Yahweh, who made heaven and earth." Psalm 124:8.
"Seek Him that made the seven stars and Orion… Yahweh is His Name." Amosyah 5:8.
"It is He that builds His stories in the heaven, and has founded His vault in the earth… Yahweh is His Name." Amosyah 9:6.
"His Name shall endure forever: His Name shall be continued as long as the sun." Psalm 72:17.
"Praise Yahweh, call upon His Name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His Name is exalted." Isayah 12:4.
"… I Yahweh am your Redeemer, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." Isayah 49:26.
"And
she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Yahshua: for he shall his people from their sins." Mattithyah 1:21.
In Yahchanan
5:43 Yahshua said, "I am come in My Father's name." The family name
Yah is found within the name Yahshua. We also find the set apart Name Yahweh at the end of the names of many prophets like Yliyah
(which means "my Mighty One is Yahweh"); also note
the "Yah" sound at the end of Isayah, Jeremyah, Obadyah, Zephanyah,
Zecharyah, and many others.
"Wherefore Yahweh also has highly
exalted him [Yahshua], and given him the name which is above every name: that at
the name of Yahshua every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and
things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue
should confess that Yahshua the Messiah is the redeemer, to the esteem of
Yahweh the Father." Philippians 2:9-11.
"Neither is there redemption in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be redeemed." Acts 4:12.
"To him give all
the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believes in him
shall receive remission of sins." Acts 10:43.
"And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His son Yahshua the Messiah…." 1 Yahchanan 3:23.
"Sing forth the honor of His Name: make His praise esteemed." Psalm 66:2.
"And the nations shall revere the Name of Yahweh." Psalm 102:15.
"Hallowed Be Thy Name"
Does not your own so called "Holy Bible" proclaim that His Name is to
be "hallowed" [sanctified {sacred}, made holy]? The Hebrew equivalent
word is 'kodesh/qodesh/kadosh/qodosh' and the Greek is 'hagios' and
means 'to be set apart' or 'made separate'. This word used from a
righteous standpoint in relation to our Heavenly Father and Creator's
Name means that His Name is 'to be set apart' or 'made separate' from
ALL OTHER NAMES.
VATICAN BANS THE USE OF THE NAME OF GOD WHICH IS 'YAHWEH' WITHIN CATHOLIC CHURCHES
Francis X. Rocca 08-14-08
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Catholics at worship should neither sing nor pronounce the name of God as "Yahweh," the Vatican has said, citing the authority of both Jewish and Christian practice.
The instruction came in a June 29 2008 letter to Catholic bishops conferences around the world from the Vatican's top liturgical body, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, by an explicit "directive" of Pope Benedict XVI.
"In recent years the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel's proper name," the letter noted, referring to the four-consonant Hebrew "Tetragrammaton," YHWH.
That name is commonly pronounced as "Yahweh," though other versions include "Jaweh" and "Yehovah." But such pronunciation violates long-standing Jewish tradition, the Vatican reminded bishops.
"As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, (the name) was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: `Adonai,' which means `Lord,"' the Congregation said.
That practice continued with Christianity, the letter explained, recalling the "church's tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred Tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated."
Invoking a Vatican document from 2001, the Congregation reminded bishops that the name "Yahweh" in Catholic worship should be replaced by the Latin "Dominus" (Lord) or a word "equivalent in meaning" in the local language.
The Vatican's move will require changes in a number of hymns and prayers currently used in American churches, but not to the Mass itself, said the U.S. bishops' top liturgical official.
Catholic News Service quoted an Aug. 8 letter from Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Divine Worship, informing American prelates of the policy.
The Vatican's instruction, Serratelli wrote, would serve as "an encouragement to show reverence for the name of God in daily life, emphasizing the power of language as an act of devotion and worship."
The following is a prime example of PROFIT (NOT PROPHET) motivation of translators:
Yahweh appears in the original Hebrew text about 7000
times, but the NIV fails to mention it even once. When asked about
this, Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV's
committee wrote: "Here is why we did not: You are right that Yahweh
is a distinctive name for [the Almighy] and ideally we should have used it. But
we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of
throwing that down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as,
'Yahweh is my shepherd.' Immediately, we would have translated for
nothing. Nobody would have used it. Oh, maybe you and a handful [of]
others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the
victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to
get two million to read it—that is how many have bought it to date—and
to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the
correct translation of Yahweh. . . . It was a hard decision, and many
of our translators agree with you."
Was The Pronunciation Of Our Heavenly Father and Creator's Name Lost?
His Name Is Yahweh!
Notice what The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901, Volume 12, page 119, states.
It
thus becomes possible to determine with a fair degree of certainty the
historical pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, the results agreeing
with the statement of Ex. iii. 14, in which YHWH terms Himself hyha. "I
will be", a phrase which is immediately proceeded by the fuller term "I
will be that I will be," or, as in the English versions, "I am" and "I
am that I am." The name hwhy is accordingly derived from the root hwh
(=hyh), and is regarded as an imperfect. This passage is decisive for
the pronunciation "Yahweh"; for the etymology was undoubtedly based on
the known word.
The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 7, page 680, further states this fact.
The
true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek
writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced
"Yahweh". This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first
syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used
in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as the
final syllable in very many Hebrew names.
"After
the death of the high priest Simeon the Righteous [270 B. C.] the
priests ceased to pronounce the Name (Yoma 39b), From that time
the pronunciation of the Name was prohibited. "Whoever pronounces the
Name forfeits his portion in the future world" (Sauh. xi. 1)." (The
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 9: pp. l62-l63).
Because of the deceptive vowel points, the name Yahweh
became Yehowah. The Latin spelling of this new name was Iehovah (later
Jehovah, pronounced Yehowah). "Jehovah" is generally held to be the
invention of Pope Leo X's confessor, Peter Galatin "[De Arcanis
Catholisae Veritatis, 1518, folio xliii.]." (The Jewish
Encyclopedia, vol. 7: p. 88).
Jehovah: English transliteration of the Divine name,
based on a misunderstanding of the Hebrew text, which should probably be
read Yahweh. (The Concise Jewish Encyclopedia, p. 277).
... commonly represented in modern translations by the
form "Jehovah", which, however is a philological impossibility. (The
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 9: p. 160).
The
Shem ha-Meforash, the "distinctive name," YHWH (Yahweh)
was considered so sacred that the privilege of learning its
pronunciation became reserved to a chosen few, "a small number of
esoteric "elect" of heaven." (The Book of Jewish Knowledge, p.
401).
You shall not take the Name Yahweh your Almighty One in vain:
for Yahweh will not hold [him] guiltless that takes His Name in
vain (Deuteronomy 5:11).
CLICK HERE for more information on the 3rd Commandment
The Name Jesus
"During the Middle English period [the name was]
regularly used in its Old French (objective) form lesu. The
(Latin nominative) form lesus was rare in Middle English, but
became the regular English form in 16th century. Yet in Tindale's New
Testament, 1525-34, the form Iesu was generally used where the
Greek had Iesou, the Vulgate Iesu... This was, as a rule,
retained by Coverdale 1535, and in the Great Bible 1539..."
(The Oxford English Dictionary [1n 12 vols.] vol. 5: p. 573).
The name appears in English Bibles and Historical works,
as Iesu (pronounced yay-soo), prior to 1633 A.D., afterwhich, it begins
to appear as Jesu. Finally in the year 1779 we find the spelling Jesus
being commonly used, but not exclusively, for Jesu is still used through
1827 and probably as late as 1881. (For a detailed etymology please
consult the previously cited reference book). The Jesus spelling may
have come into existence as early as 1775, or 1776, along with the
Satanic declaration "Don't Tread on Me". According to Benjamin H.
Freedman there was no word "Jew" before this time either. "It is an
incontestable fact that the word "Jew" did not come into existence until
the year 1775. Prior to 1775 the word "Jew" did riot exist in any
language." (Facts are Facts, p. 12).
Where and how did the name Yesu (Yay-soo) originate?
The Hebrew language was the original language of Israel
and of the Holy Scripture [O.T.]. The first form of Christ's name is
found in the book of Numbers. Moses had a helper named HWS (Nu.
13:8,16). Moses renamed HWS` (Helper) by adding the first letter of
God's name, it then read: YHWS` (which presumably meant, YHWH is the
helper). The word YHWS` was changed to (YSW`) in the days of Ezra and
Nehemiah. This final form (YSW`) was transliterated by Jewish scholars
in the Septuagint Scripture (Greek) in the 3rd century B.C. as [lesou:
e.a.sou] (which sounded exactly like the Hebrew name).
The actual pronunciation of the Hebrew no vowel name
must depend upon the Greek, since this was the first language with
vowels into which the Hebrew Scripture was translated [1,000 yrs. before
the Masoretes introduced their vowel signs].
The transliteration (bringing over the sound from one
language into another) of the Greek word into English is Yasu
[yay-soo].... Since the Greek name of Christ was pronounced Yasu, and
the Greek sounded exactly like the Hebrew, YSW` also was pronounced Yasu
[yay-soo].
Greek was the world-wide language at the time of Christ
and His apostles. The good news of Christ therefore was first spread in
the Greek language....
Since God chose this Holy name, Yasu, by which to save
his people [Matt. 1:21; Lk. 24:47; Acts 10:43; etc.] it evidently is of
utmost importance, and should not be changed. God ordained that His
saving name should be pronounced Yasu [yay-soo]. Who is man to say that
God's name is not important enough to keep its original pronunciation
and should now follow the false church's practice of calling His name
"Jesus"? (Who Is God?, K.M. Bean).
Under
the name Jesus, the Etymological Dictionary of the English Language by
Rev. Walter W. Skeat, "the Saviour of mankind. (L.-Gk.-Heb.) In
Wyclif's Bible. -- L. lesus (Vulgate). -- G. lesous. --
Heb. Yeshu`a (Jeshua, Nehemiah viii. 17, a later form of Joshua):
contracted form of Yehoshu`a (Jehoshua, Numbers 13:16),
signifying, [Yahweh] is salvation or "Saviour." (p. 314).
Following
is a note from Cracking The Bible Code, by Jeffrey Satinover:
"The silent letters in Hebrew are 'aleph' and 'ayin',
which can take on any vowel sound. Many words are spelled with them or
without them. (Such a letter is called a mater lexionis.)" (p.
312). The "a" vowel of the final syllable in Yeshua is not derived from
the ayin, but from the deceptive Masoretic points which did not
appear before the 7th-8th century A.D. "One has to be careful not to
grant the same canonical authority to the Masoretes as to Moses and the
prophets. Nor should one be too critical of the modern Old Testament
scholar who thinks he has just cause to alter one or two of the signs
the Masoretes had introduced." (Do lt yourself Hebrew and Greek:
Everybody's Guide to the Language Tools, p. 14:3).
"lesous
is the Greek form of the Old Testament Jewish name Yesua`, arrived
at by transcribing the Hebrew and adding an -s to the nominative to
facilitate declension. Yesua` (Joshua) seems to have come into general
use about the time of the Babylonian exile in place of the older
Yehosua`. The LXX [Greek translation of O.T.] rendered both the ancient
and more recent forms of the name uniformly as lesous." (The
New International Dictionary of the New Testament Theology, vol. 2:
pp. 33O-331).
