Vatican Says "Yahweh" Not to Be Pronounced

by betterdaze 35 Replies latest social current

• 

  betterdaze

  Vatican Says "Yahweh" Not to Be Pronounced
  Calls on Practice Used by 1st Christians
  
  WASHINGTON, D.C., AUG. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A note from the Vatican has reiterated a directive that the name of God revealed in the tetragrammaton YHWH is not to be pronounced in Catholic liturgy.
  
  Bishop Arthur Serratelli, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Divine Worship, in a note informing prelates of the Vatican directive, said the indications "do not force any changes to official liturgical texts," but might cause "some impact on the use of particular pieces of liturgical music in our country as well as in the composition of variable texts such as the general intercessions for the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments."
  
  Commonly used songs with phrases such as "Yahweh, I know you are near," will need to be modified.
  
  The June 29 Vatican message, from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, clarified that the name of God revealed in YHWH was not pronounced by the first Christians, following the tradition already in use.
  
  It explained: "The venerable biblical tradition of sacred Scripture, known as the Old Testament, displays a series of divine appellations, among which is the sacred name of God revealed in a tetragrammaton YHWH -- hwhw. As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it 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 Greek translation of the Old Testament, the so called Septuagint, dating back to the last centuries prior to the Christian era, had regularly rendered the Hebrew tetragrammaton with the Greek word Kyrios, which means 'Lord.' Since the text of the Septuagint constituted the Bible of the first generation of Greek speaking Christians, in which language all the books of the New Testament were also written, these Christians, too, from the beginning never pronounced the divine tetragrammaton."
  
  Theology
  
  The Vatican goes on to note that this practice had "important implications" for New Testament Christology.
  
  "When in fact, St. Paul, with regard to the crucifixion, writes that 'God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name" (Phil 2:9), he does not mean any other name than 'Lord,' for he continues by saying, 'and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord' (Phil 2:11; cf. Isaiah 42:8: 'I am the Lord; that is my name')," the Vatican note explained.
  
  "The attribution of this title to the risen Christ corresponds exactly to the proclamation of his divinity," it continued. "The title in fact becomes interchangeable between the God of Israel and the Messiah of the Christian faith, even though it is not in fact one of the titles used for the Messiah of Israel."
  
  "Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds," the Vatican concluded. "Apart from a motive of a purely philogical order, there is also that of remaining faithful to 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."
  
  http://www.zenit.org/article-23414?l=english
• 

  heathen

  I'm thinking they took it out so as to deceive people about the trinity since the first commandment was about Jehovah not having any other Gods before him. That's how Leonardo devinci got ex communicated because he realized that .
• 

  jwfacts

  Interesting. They are using solid reasoning in doing so.

  JW's will use this as further proof that the Catholic Church is on the side of Satan, but hopefully some will look into it and find that it is actually the Watchtower Society that is being dishonest in this case by deceptively adding the word Jehovah into the New Testament.
• 

  reniaa

  It can go both ways, depending on your leaning, trinitarian christians will see this as confirmation, Jehovah's witnesses will see it as confirmation too

  obviously I myself lean on the witness side as expected, it certainly seems a weird time for them to make such a statement.
• 

  Satanus

  As it states, it's staying w all the evidence of first century christianity and the nt. 'Course, the wt insists on going beyond that. The wt has staked everything on the name jehovah, a latter catholic invention, by catholic raymundo martini. It shows the wt's stupidity.
  
  S
• 

  BurnTheShips

  "YHWH" only gets mentioned in a few psalms in Mass--when they are sung which isn't every week. It isn't a regular part of the Mass.

  Heh

  Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses said to himself, "Self!" And Moses replied, "What?" and Moses said, "Go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up." And Moses said, "Okay."
  
  When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, He called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses replied, "What?"
  
  "Do not come any closer," the LORD said, "and take off your sandals."
  
  Moses said in awe, "For this is holy ground?"
  
  The LORD relied, "No, it's just that I got this puppy really stoked, and your straps are starting to smoulder."
  
  So when Moses had obediently removed his sandals and reverently extinguished his feet in the sand, he asked, "Who are you?"
  
  The LORD said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God, and because his eyebrows were beginning to singe.
  
  The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and lamenting because of their suffering. Truth to tell, I'm getting tired of the whining. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into Promised Land."
  
  And Moses said, "What is this Promised Land?"
  
  And the LORD said, "The land I'm promising you. Keep up, son! So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
  
  Moses said to the LORD, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
  
  The LORD said to Moses, "I don't have a name. I don't need one."
  
  But Moses replied, "Everyone has a name! How shall we call you?"
  
  And the LORD replied, "'God' works. Or 'LORD', with all caps. 'Father' is cool, too. Doesn't really matter, I'll know when you are talking to me."
  
  But Moses cried, "But they are not names!"
  
  And the LORD replied, "Look, mate, you lot all have names to tell each other apart. I do not have a name, because I don't need to be told apart from anyone. I am the LORD your God."
  
  But Moses was in anguish. "That makes no sense! I cannot just say 'God has sent me' or "The LORD has sent me'! They will ask, 'Which God?' or 'What Lord?'"
  
  And the LORD replied, "I need no name, for I just am. I Am who I Am."
  
  And Moses dared to look up and said, "Come again?"
  
  And the LORD repeated, "I Am who I Am", or in the language of the day, "Yahweh".
  
  And Moses brightened and answered, "Yahweh!"
  
  And the LORD replied, "Uh, no, see, not you, but 'I Am…'"
  
  But Moses was filled with joy, for he knew the Name of the LORD. "I shall go to the Children of Israel, and their Parents, and say, 'Yahweh saith, "I will deliver you out of bondage and bring to the Promised Land!"'"
  
  And the Lord interjected, "Whoa, there, pilgrim, that's not My name, I just said…"
  
  But Moses heard Him not, but said, "And I shall say to Pharaoh, 'Yahweh saith, "Let My people go!"'"
  
  And the LORD did sigh a mighty sigh, such that the sound was heard down the slopes of Horeb, and throughout the lands of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites, and even rustled some leaves in what would eventually be known as Muncie.
  
  And the LORD relented and said, "All right, call Me 'Yahweh'…"
  
  But then Moses said, "But, lo, it is not meet that I should call my LORD by His Name, for it is Holy, and I must not profane it."
  
  And the LORD said, "Say what? You just spent all this time prying a name out of Me, a name I never had nor needed, and when I finally give you one, you won't use it?"
  
  But Moses was steadfast, and said, "None shall say Thy Name, O LORD, lest we profane It. We shall call You 'The Name', and when we write the Name, we won't use vowels, whenever we get around to inventing them. For the Name of the LORD is holy! Blessed be His Holy Name, which no one will ever say, or write properly (and it will get even better when they finally expand the alphabet and add 'J' and 'W'!), so that eventually no one will be able to profane it because they won't know how to pronounce it!"
  
  And the LORD said unto Himself, "Gevalt…"

  BTS
• 

  sir82

  JWs are going to be all over that like flies on sweet tea.

  That article will be quoted from in the literature no less than half a dozen times over the next 2 years, I predict.
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  Earnest

  This announcement is based on a 'Letter to the Bishops' Conferences on "The Name of God"' may be seen here . It was written on June 29, 2008 by Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, to the presidents of all conferences of bishops.

  It prohibits the use of God's name in the liturgy, and reads as follows:

  By directive of the Holy Father, in accord with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments deems it convenient to communicate to the Bishops' Conferences the following as regards the translation and the pronunciation, in a liturgical setting, of the Divine Name signified in the sacred tetragrammaton, along with a number of directives.

  I. Exposition
  
  1. The words of Sacred Scripture contained in the Old and New Testament express truth which transcends the limits imposed by time and place. They are the Word of God expressed in human words. By means of these words of life, the Holy Spirit introduces the faithful to knowledge of the truth, whole and entire; and thus the Word Christ comes to dwell in the faithful in all its richness (cf. Jn 14:26; 16:12-15.) In order that the Word of God, written in the sacred texts, may be conserved and transmitted in an integral and faithful manner, every modern translation of the books of the Bible aims at being a faithful and accurate transposition of the original texts. Such a literary effort requires that the original text be translated with maximum integrity and accuracy, without omissions or additions with regard to the contents and without introducing explanatory glosses or paraphrases which do not belong to the sacred text itself.

  As regards the sacred name of God himself, translators must use the greatest faithfulness and respect. In particular, as the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam (n.41) states:

  In accordance with immemorial tradition, which indeed is already evident in the above- mentioned Septuagint version, the name of almighty God expressed by the Hebrew tetragrammaton and rendered in Latin by the word Dominus, is to be rendered into any given vernacular by a word equivalent in meaning.

  [Iuxta traditionem ab immemorabili receptam, imo in (...)versione "LXX vitorum" iam perspicuam, nomen Dei omnipotentis, sacro tetragrammate hebaraice expressum, latine vocabulo "Dominus" in quavis lingua populari vocabulo quodam eiusdem significationis reddatur.]

  Notwithstanding such a clear norm, in recent years the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel's proper name, known as the holy or divine tetragrammaton, written with four consonants of the Hebrew alphabet in form ????, YHWH. The practice of vocalizing it is met with both in the reading of biblical texts taken from the lectionary, as well as in prayers and hymns.

  It occurs in diverse written and spoken forms, for example, Yahweh, Yahwè, Jahweh, Jahwè, Jave, Yehovah, etc. It is therefore our intention, with the present letter, to set out some essential facts which lie behind the above-mentioned norm and to establish some directives to be observed in this matter.

  2. The venerable biblical tradition of Sacred Scripture, known as the Old Testament, displays a series of divine appellations, among which is the sacred name of God revealed in the tetragrammaton YHWH ????. As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it 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 Greek translation of the Old Testament, the so-called Septuagint, dating back to the last centuries prior to the Christian era, had regularly rendered the Hebrew tetragrammaton with the Greek word Kyrios, which means "Lord." Since the text of the Septuagint constituted the Bible of the first generation of Greek-speaking Christians, in which language all the books of the New Testament were also written, these Christians, too, from the beginning never pronounced the divine tetragrammaton. Something similar happened likewise for Latin-speaking Christians, whose literature began to emerge from the second century, as first the Vetus Latina and, later, the Vulgate of St. Jerome attest. In these translations, too, the tetragrammaton was regularly replaced with the Latin word "Dominus," corresponding both to the Hebrew Adonai and to the Greek Kyrios. The same holds for the recent Neo-Vulgate which the Church employs in the liturgy.

  This fact has had important implications for New Testament Christology itself. When in fact St. Paul, with regard to the Crucifixion, writes that "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name" (Phil 2:9), he does not mean any name other than "Lord," for he continues by saying, "and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil 2:11;cf. Is 42:8: "I am the Lord; that is my name.") The attribution of this title to the risen Christ corresponds exactly to the proclamation of his divinity. The title in fact becomes interchangeable between the God of Israel and the Messiah of the Christian faith, even though it is not in fact one of the titles used for the Messiah of Israel.

  In the strictly theological sense, this title is found, for example, already in the first canonical Gospel (cf. Mt 1:20: "The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.") One sees it as a rule in Old Testament citations in the New Testament (cf. Acts 2:20: " The sun shall be turned into darkness. . . before the day of the Lord comes (Joel 3:4); 1 Peter 1:25: "The word of the Lord abides for ever" (Is 40:8)).

  However, in the properly Christological sense, apart from the text cited of Philippians 2:9-11, one can remember Romans 10:9 ("If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved"), 1 Corinthians 2:8 ("they would not have crucified the Lord of glory"), 1 Corinthians 12:3 ("No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit") and the frequent formula concerning the Christian who lives "in the Lord" (Rm 16:2; 1 Cor 7:22, 1 Thess 3:8; etc.).

  3. Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds. Apart from a motive of a purely philological order, there is also that of remaining faithful to 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.

  II. Directives

  In the light of what has been expounded, the following directives are to be observed:

  1. In liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced.

  2. For the translation of the biblical text in modern languages, intended for the liturgical usage of the Church, what is already prescribed by n. 41 of the Instruction Liturgiam authenticamis to be followed; that is, the divine tetragrammaton is to be rendered by the equivalent of Adonai/Kyrios; "Lord," Signore, Seigneur, Herr, Señor, etc.

  3. In translating, in the liturgical context, texts in which are present, one after the other, either the Hebrew term Adonai or the tetragrammaton YHWH, Adonai is to be translated "Lord" and the form "God" is to be used for the tetragrammaton YHWH, similar to what happens in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and in the Latin translation of the Vulgate.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  If the Jews and early Christians did not pronounce YHWH then this completely undercuts WT insistence on using "Jehovah" as an identifying label of true Christians.

  BTS
• 

  sir82

  If the Jews and early Christians did not pronounce YHWH then this completely undercuts WT insistence on using "Jehovah" as an identifying label of true Christians.

  Well, sure, that's what the (ick) Catholics would say! They've been blinded by the Devil like everyone else.

  Or at least that's what a typical JW would say.

  For a JW, their "trump card" is Luke 4:16-21, where Jesus reads from Isaiah's scroll and YHWH appears twice in the readng. "Surely Jesus, who knew how to pronounce God's name, would not bow to Jewish superstition and say 'Lord' instead."