I just can't shake this feeling about the word Jehovah, and Now I know why

by A-Team 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  AllTimeJeff

  Frankly, it doesn't matter what his name is in English. This is a controversy for the sake of controversy. It has it's traditions from the time of Rutherford. His thing was publicity. So to get attention for his little group, we all know about the religion is a snare and a racket, the picketing, the sound cars blaring out his speeches. Jehovah's Witnesses continue to get a lot of attention for insisting that gods name is neither Jesus or Yahweh. Why would they conform and thus lose their publicity? (remember, there is no such thing as bad publicity, unless it involves pedophilia)

  Modern day JW's have inherited a whole barrel full of tradition. One of them is the name of the hebrew/OT god. The scholarship and history of the name Jehovah and the resulting attention that are given today to a certain degree are a response and a result of Jehovah's Witnesses and the attention they give it.

  Common sense would argue that we at best have an imperfect view of the ancient past. Scholars acknowledge their limitations. We will never know how YHWH and other names in Hebrew are pronounced, because we weren't their. Nor is it necesarry that we do know. Everything today is a translation into English or whatever tounge you speak. Yet thieists argue as if it matters. Yet the deity involved, Jehovah/YHWH wasn't powerful enough to preserve his own name in a non controversial way?

  Theiests, with JW's at the top of the list, continue to argue this point so that they continue to be relavant. If they conform, they will get lost more in the shuffle of religions.

  I am a pretty easy going guy. I don't know what my name would be in say, Chinese. But when I learned how they pronounce it, I would go with the flow. What is the point?
• 

  Sunspot

  I only recently learned that the "hovah" part meant what it does, which solidifies even further, my distaste in the insistence that the WTS uses on this name. I am trying to be careful of being disrespectful, but I do not see where the WTS can demand all its followers use the name as a talisman, repeating it as a mantra in many cases.

  The WTS has made such a mockery of the name and what it supposedly represents, that they have done far more damage and brought far MORE reproach on this name than ANYONE who does NOT utter it as they do.

  The WTS version of Jehovah instills a FEAR in the hearts of the JWs, never knowing from one day to the next if they are "living up to His requirements" and if they will survive the destruction that IS the focus of Watchtowerdom. Unfortunately, the WTS writers are forced to produce article in their literature that shows the "soft side" to try and balance out the FEAR that "the name" causes in the hearts of loyal and obedient JWs.

  The WTS has to make sure that their followers don't become too bogged down with WTS requrements and the WTS cannots and do nots as THEY SAY "Jehovah demands", and even those that leave thr WTS still carry the traces of that FEAR for a long time as it is SO ingrained in their minds and hearts.

  JWs talk a good talk about how "loving and fair and just" their Watchtowergod IS, while dutifully scrambling through life at a breakneck pace, putting their lives on hold....hoping that they WILL be "chosen" to live on into the WTS Paradise Earth....and to live in this same manner throughout eternity.

  JW's have made a fetish out of God's name. They've made a fetish out of holidays, birthdays and blood too.

  They've substituted a kind of public priggishness for piety and ritual obstinancy for charity or devotion.

  Interesting observation that I completely agree with! Again ,the focus is on the blind obedience and total unbending loyalty TO these fetishes, devoid of reason and common sense....the old "do as WE say" mindset, that we know NOW, is not demanded BY God at all. The God *I* have since come to love and appreciate since leaving the WTS, is one that IS love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. He is a friend and not a demanding tyrant that will whip me and send me into the corner as punishment for being human every time I mess up.

  The more we can find out about this Watchtowergod and be able to point these things out on a public forum for JWs to SEE....the better it will help THEM to realize that they are followers of the wrong god after all.
• 

  A-Team

  After thinking about it a little bit, I think if JWs say "Jah" or "Yah", I think it would be acceptable, because that actually means I AM. But when you attach Hovah to it, then you will get into much trouble.
• 

  Narkissos

  After thinking about it a little bit, I think if JWs say "Jah" or "Yah", I think it would be acceptable, because that actually means I AM.

  Nope.

  "I am" (or "I will be") in Biblical Hebrew is either 'ehyeh (as in Exodus 3:14ff) or hayiti (I was, I have been), respectively the imperfect and perfect 1st person singular of the verb hyh. It can also be expressed without any verb by the pronoun "I" ('ani, 'anokhi). Nothing to do with "Yah" in any case.
• 

  Hellrider

  Narkissos, I have a few questions for us that don`t know anything about hebrew and things like that, maybe you could clear it up for us:

  1) The old Yah="I am"-myth, is it correct to say that this is derived from the Septuagint-translation of one of the titles from God in the OT? Like: I AM the Lord who brought you out of Egypt blah blah = EGW EIMI etcetera something something? - and that this title (the beginning of his titles) became "synonymous" (in the minds of the greek) with Gods name (yahweh), and that this is where this misconception came from? And if so: Could it be that this "misconception" was in the mind of the writer of the Gospel of John too - and that what he meant by putting all these egw eimi in the mouth of Jesus, was to actually say that he claimed to be God? (if the latter part of this question is to "big", just ignore it)

  2) Are you saying that the name yahweh has nothing to do with the verb hawah (and does hawah mean "causing to become" or "causing mischief"?) If so, what does the name mean? What are its roots?
• 

  Narkissos

  Hello HR

  1) The old Yah="I am"-myth, is it correct to say that this is derived from the Septuagint-translation of one of the titles from God in the OT? Like: I AM the Lord who brought you out of Egypt blah blah = EGW EIMI etcetera something something? - and that this title (the beginning of his titles) became "synonymous" (in the minds of the greek) with Gods name (yahweh), and that this is where this misconception came from? And if so: Could it be that this "misconception" was in the mind of the writer of the Gospel of John too - and that what he meant by putting all these egw eimi in the mouth of Jesus, was to actually say that he claimed to be God? (if the latter part of this question is to "big", just ignore it)

  The connection of Yhwh (not just the abbreviated form Yah, whence my reply to A-Team) to the verb hyh (to be, to become) already occurs in the late Hebrew text of Exodus 3:14ff, as a theological pun (perhaps reflecting some popular etymology). So it does not originate in Greek -- the LXX in this case translate 'ehyeh'asher 'ehyehas egô eimi ho ôn, "I am the being," i.e. "I am the one who is," giving an even more metaphysical and static ring to the expression.

  Digression (but important I think): in the earlier polytheistic context, Yhwh is the personal name of one god among others. In personal names, the "meaning" or etymology, whatever it is, recedes into the background because personal names are not used to mean something but to point to someone and differentiate him/her from others. If you have a friend by the name of Rose or Lily, you don't think of the flower every time you call her: the "meaning / etymology," however real and clear, is only summoned occasionally and explicitly; it is the exception, not the rule, and this is also true of puns / popular etymologies in the Bible texts: the Hebrew reader doesn't think of "laughter" every time s/he reads "Isaac," only when the context explicitly calls for it. As regards Yhwh, as soon as he became the only God in a monotheistic context, his name lost its differentiating function and had to be explained otherwise: whence the pun in the comparatively late text of Exodus 3 imo.

  The specific use of egô eimi in GJohn is characteristic because it is often absolute. 'Egô eimi + predicate (I am someone/something, "the Lord," "the vine," "the light," "the gate") is of itself unremarkable. But 'egô eimi, period, is unnatural and theologically loaded, especially when it cannot be construed as the answer to the question "who?" (in that case 'egô eimi only means "it's me"). That peculiar, absolute of 'egô eimi can indeed be traced back to the LXX, not of Exodus 3 but of Deutero-Isaiah (e.g. 43:10!) where it translates not Yhwh but 'ani hu', "I am He."

  2) Are you saying that the name yahweh has nothing to do with the verb hawah (and does hawah mean "causing to become" or "causing mischief"?) If so, what does the name mean? What are its roots?

  The verbhwh from which Yhwh might logically derive is unknown as such in Biblical Hebrew. The best guesses as to its "origin" (not necessarily "meaning," see above) point to the sense of "to breathe, to blow," which would suit a storm-deity similar to the Northern Hadad-Baal. The hapax legomenon noun howah = "disaster" may well stem from the same root, but reading its particular negative connotation into Yhwh is quite unlikely -- I can see no reason why the name of a patron deity would be unilaterally negative to begin with.
• 

  Terry

  Jehovah's Witnesses are sooooo particular about soooo many things, but; airly dismiss the mispronunciation of their God!

  The answer that I used to hear to this was that we don't have the exact pronunciation of Jesus either. We just pronounce it the way it is used in English. The pronunciation is different in almost every language. I'm not saying, necessarily, that this reasoning is right, but I'd like some comments.

  Hubris!

  Human creatures get to decide what is important and what is unimportant about God??!!

  To KNOW God is not the same as to have a nickname for some dude you hang out with. (Hey, Shorty!)

  Shorty's Gang.

  Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus have not produced Yeshuites, Joshites, Jesusites; just Christians.

  JEHOVAH'S Witnesses means we have actual experience that gives us special knowledge that we may testify to what we've come to know first hand.

  But, JW's don't have actual knowledge from personal experience about Jehovah. They've been told the one true God has that name and they should use it. They could just as easily have been told Jehovah is sometimes called Yahweh and that he wears a bowler hat. They wouldn't know the difference.

  Putting people out on the street as Witnesses of a person or event they've never known is false. The mispronunciation of the Name is just a symptom of this misrepresentation.

  Mainstream Christians who have a conversion experience (like the Apostle Paul) have actuall MET the person they represent (in some "real-to-them" fashion). JW's just meet strangers at the door who tell them things and suddenly they're wearing a T-shirt logo!

  It should be that they are called JEHOVAH (we've never) WITNESS(ed).
• 

  A-Team

  Ok, screw it, I think we are better off calling YHWH the following:
  
  God
  Almighty God
  Father God
  Father in Heaven
  
  That way, we KNOW that we arn't calling him a name that means bad things.
• 

  Hellrider

  Narkissos, thanks. I actually even understood it too. The one possibility that is not excluded is the one connection to hyh (to become). Interesting point about Isaiah 43.10, in which yhwh speaks and says I am (he). Would be interesting to hear what jws thinks of that one ((ani hu = egw eimi (without "he" - but that`s still pretty close))
• 

  snowbird

  Hellrider,

  You can glean quite a bit from this discussion of ani hu = ego eimi found here:

  http://aomin.org/index.php?itemid=666&catid=3

  I know I did.

  Snowbird