by cameo-d 7 Replies latest watchtower bible
Yahweh didn't get a name till Moses come up with the "I am" thing.
Not sure how it made it from I AM to Yahweh. And even crazier from Yahwh to Jehovah.
But anyway, my question is this: Since god didn't have a name until "Exodus" and if Bible translaters say they are being accurate...
how come the name became retro-active and Genesis gives god the name Jehovah before he really has a name?
How can these translaters call this accurate?
Jehovah was never a accurate translation of the Divine Name.
The spelling of "Iehovah" entered the English language through William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible completed in 1537. He transliterated the tetragrammaton into the English language with the Masoretic vowel markings as had those in the Renaissance. The letter and sound of the English "J" was a later development of the English language, and so this spelling and pronunciation would not change to "Jehovah" until the late 17 th century. Since this time many English speakers have pronounced God’s name as Jehovah.
So how exactly should we pronounce the Hebrew YHWH? Because of the fact that the vocalic tradition for the pronunciation of YHWH has not been preserved, we cannot be absolutely sure about its pronunciation. We can be fairly certain, however. Here is a brief examination of the divine name of God.
YHWH is the third person singular form, most likely coming from the Hebrew word hayah, which has the meaning of "to be." In Exodus 3:14, when Moses asked God for His name, God said His name was ehyeh. This is the first person form of hayah, meaning "I am." YHWH is the third person form meaning "He is."
The original pronunciation was probably YaHWeH. This seems to be the case by examining Jewish names. Many names contain part of the divine name, i.e. yah, and by examing the vowels that they used to construct their names with the divine abbreviation attached, we can get a feel for how YWHW was originally pronounced. We conclude from the examining names such as Joshua, Jehoshaphat, Elijah, and even the word hallelujah (hallel=praise; yah=Yahweh), that YH was pronounced as yah. We also have evidence that Yahweh is probably the correct pronunciation from examining the Greek’s tranliteration of the divine name as iaoueor iabe.
In conclusion, although it is not necessarily wrong to say God’s name as Jehovah, by no means can it be claimed that Jehovah is the name of God that has only been restored to us in these recent times. At best Jehovah can only be claimed to be an acceptable way of pronouncing God’s name in the English language, and at worst it could be said to be a phonetic corruption of God’s name. The probable pronunciation of God’s revealed name is Yahweh.
So, why even bother claiming Jehovah being the Divine Name? Why even use it?
The name is not "retroactive" in Genesis. It only has the appearance of this because the Pentateuch is a composite document that combines different sources and redacted material. One of these strands, the Yahwist, claims that God was known as "Yahweh" as far back as Enosh. The other two major strands in the document (Elohist and Priestly Code) however claim that Yahweh was not revealed until Moses' encounter at the burning bush. It is in these passages in Genesis that God is called by other names or is simply termed "God" ('lhym). And "I am" is more of a theological explanation of the meaning of the name Yahweh.
The other names given to God in Genesis, El, El-Shaddai, El-Elyon, El-Olam, etc. indicate that the god presumed to have been worshipped by the patriarchs was the Canaanite deity El, the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon (the epithets given in Genesis all fit very well with the titles and epithets accorded to El in Canaanite texts). The name El goes back through the second millennium BC in the Bronze Age, while the name Yahweh only appears in ancient texts in the Iron Age subsequent to the rise of Israel, and this fits with the claim that Yahweh was adopted only later as a divine name. This fact is also reflected in the theophoric elements in personal and place names in Genesis, which generally derive from El (Ishmael, Eliezer, Eldaah, Bethel, Israel, Peniel, Reuel, Eliphaz). I believe the first name that utilizes YH or YHWH as a theophoric element is Jochebed, the mother of Moses. But interestingly, she is unnamed in Exodus, ch. 2; it is only in ch. 6, AFTER the relevation of the name at the burning bush in ch. 3-4 that the narrative names her as Jochebed ("Yah is glory").
Had it not been for Tyndale, the Dubs would be called Yawweh's Witnesses instead of Jehovah's Witnesses.
It's no wonder why he's on the cover of this year's Memorial invitation.
Tyndale ? I only have his N.T ,which of course does not use the name, did he use "Jehovah" in his O.T ?
It was a usage coined by a RC monk before Tyndale's time, arrived at by putting the vowels from Adonay, I think, in to YHWH .
As is pointed out elsehwere on the Net, this makes as much sense as putting the vowels from Portugal in to the consonants GRMN (from "Germany") whilst trying to establish the correct pronunciation of "Germany" if you only had the consonants, you end up with nothing close, you end up with "Gormuna".
What a silly monk.
In Leo's learned and educational post above, she shows that none of it is as simple as the WT/JW's would have us believe. It would appear that "Abraham" and characters from that part of "History", "Melchizedeck" etc, worshipped El.
Yahweh, as a name, and as a god, is a later evolution/invention. As was mono-theism.
Interesting. Does anyone know if there is a connection between 'El' and 'Allah' they sound related to my uneducated ear :)
Dear GromitSK, you are on to something !
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology says:
"Allah n. name of god among Moslems and Christian Arabs. 1584, borrowed from Arabic Al lah, contraction of Al-ilah the (true) god, corresponding to Hebrew eloah God."
It's not often I'm onto something :)
