PSALMS 83: 18 What is the name of God ?

by william draper 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  stuckinarut2

  Good thoughts....
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  Wild_Thing

  Regardless of how you pronounce his name, Jehovah was only one god of many that were popular during the time period that some might call "biblical times." There were many gods that people worshiped. And while there are a few places in the bible that says he was the "only god", there are more examples in the bible referring to other gods, and many of them claiming Jehovah was "greater" than those other gods.

  Am I saying there were REALLY other gods or a god at all? No. I am saying a lot of the authors of the bible obviously knew of these other gods and recognized them as gods. They just thought their god was better. I really don't think Jehovah will get upset if your pronounce "his" name wrong, anymore than it would upset the god Rimmon or Molech or ... look it up ... there are like 30+ gods named in the bible.

  People make god in their image, and when you have a lot of different cultures, you are going to get a lot of different gods.

  So basically, back then you had a lot of different groups of people who each said ... my god is better than yours ... he's the real deal.

  My how times have changed! Oh wait ... maybe not.
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  Viviane

  Although there appears to be still lacking evidence , very oddly there are incitations of God's name having been written in the New Testament , besides Jws , others speak of MATTHEW as possibly have been originally in Hebrew , but no real evidence of this found as of yet .

  Matthew was never written in Hebrew or Aramaic, it was written in Koine Greek. There are no signs of translations and it fits perfectly with other examples of text written natively in that language.

  Interestingly, YHWH is a modern (in the Jewish sense) invention, an amalgamation of a much older god EL and YHWH. The earliest writings about YHWH are nothing like the later writings, he was a much more personal and local god. Later, as the the proto-Jewish Semitic people became more isolated from their Semitic counterparts, YHWH began to take on the all powerful properties of EL. He lost his consort, Asherah. His brother Ba'al became his enemy.
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  Viviane

  Who calls their father by his first name!

  I do, but then, I've disowned him and refuse to give him that honorific simply because we share some twisted strands of DNA.
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  smiddy

  I think it`s interesting that the witnesses are always coming up with new light about every belief they ever had and changing it accordingly , but the wrong spelling / pronunciation of God`s name is set in stone.

  Go figure

  smiddy
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  SimonSays

  So if the Encyclopedia Britannica

  Yahweh
  
  the God of the Israelites, his name being revealed to Moses as four Hebrew CONSONANTS (YHWH) CALLED THE TETRAGRAMMATON. AFTER THE EXILE (6TH CENTURY BC), and especially from the 3rd century BC on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun Elohim, meaning "god," tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel's God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered; it was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai ("My Lord"), which was translated as Kyrios ("Lord") in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.
  
  

  And according to Jeroen Ashton

  In 1278 a Spanish monk, Raymundo Martini, wrote the Latin work PUGIO FIDEI (Dagger of faith). In it he used the name of God, spelling it Yohoua. Later printings of this work, dated some centuries later, used the spelling JEHOVA.
  
  Soon after, in 1303, Porchetus de Salvaticis completed a work entitled VICTORIA PORCHETI AVERSUS IMPIOS HEBRAEOS (Porchetus' Victory against the Ungodly Hebrews). He spells God's name IOHOUAH, IOHOUA and IHOUAH.
  
  Then, in 1518, Petrus Galatinus, a Catholic priest born in the late 1400's, published a work entitled DE ARCANIS CATHOLICAE VERITATIS (Concerning Secrets of the Universal Truth) in which he spelled God's name IEHOUA.
  
  Now, the direct answer to your question: the name "Jehovah" first appeared in an English BIBLE in 1530, when William Tyndale published a translation of the Chumash (the first five books of the Bible). In this, he included the name of God, usually spelled IEHOUAH, in several verses (Genesis 15:2; Exodus 6:3; 15:3; 17:6; 23:17; 33:19; 34:23; Deuteronomy 3:24. Tyndale also included God's name in Ezekiel 18:23 and 36:23 in his translations that were added at the end of THE NEW TESTAMENT, Antwerp, 1534), and in a note in this edition he wrote: "Iehovah is God's name... moreover as oft as thou seist LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing) is is in Hebrew Iehovah." (Please note as I told you previously, there was no "J" in English at this time; the J is a product of a stylized I; thus giving us the current Jehovah rather than the Old English Iehovah. The "u" used in the above names is also a reminder that there was no "v" in Old English, as you can read David in the original King James version was written "Dauid".)
  
  In 1534 Martin Luther published his complete translation of the Bible in German, based on the original languages. While he used the German "Herr" (Lord or Sir) for the Tetragrammaton, in a sermon which he delivered in 1526 on Jeremiah 23:1-8, he said, "The name Jehovah, Lord, belongs exclusively to the true God."
  
  Subsequently, Jehovah was used not only in the "Authorized" King James Version of 1611, but the Spanish VALERA version of 1602, the Portuguese ALMEIDA version of 1681, the German ELBERFELDER version of 1871, and the American Standard Version of 1901. It appears that the Jerusalem Bible was the first one to used Yahweh instead of Lord and Jehovah.

  
  The Masoretic, who from about 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 the Hebrew words Adonai ("Lord", editor) or Elohim ("God", editor). Thus, the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) (emphasis ours, ed.) came into being. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th century’s biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh. Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.

  Hence forth the name kept by the Watchtower. So the ignorance and falsehood would be within the scholars, and theologians that ratified it, way before Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  Even though there were and are many Gods, there was and is only one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So then yes it would be befitting to use the personal name of God to have that personal relationship with those who believe in him, verses just seeing him as an object to those of use that don’t.

  Moreover, my confusion is with other religions that profess to be Christians and are here ridiculing another Christian sect. I don’t believe that will fare well being all saintly in one hand, and the devils mouth peace in the other. I mean if your quest is for the truth, then seek the truth and then be truthful about it. No judgment that’s up to God for the believers, just an observation.
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  william draper

  Love your response Simon . was all that in the EB , looks like some extra research there , thankyou .. ..
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  CalebInFloroda

  Just another way of looking at things from the viewpoint of a Jew (who was a Jehovah’s Witness for a few years as a teenager and into his 20s due to weird decisions his parents made for a while).

  Anyway, in Semitic culture the existence of something doesn’t always include the validity of its use. For Jews the more that something is used, the more common the same thing becomes; the more people who use it, the more mundane the object.

  In Hebrew the word for “name” (shem) means “handle.” It refers to something by which you can grasp, hold and control another like a bit placed in a horse’s mouth. In Semitic culture the uttering of a name meant you had a handle on another. You could call the attention of the person and thus had some control over them. Naming something, like a child or object, implied ownership and control over the same. Thus naming a god or uttering its name was often reserved to prophets or priests or magicians who could wield power due to knowing the “handle” of the god upon whom they called. (“Handle” was also the popular term for pseudonyms used by persons during the C.B. radio craze that swept through the United States in the 1970s.)

  The name YHWH doesn’t exactly mean what the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim it means, at least not to Jews. The name YHWH means “I am defined by myself,” thus the popular English rendition of “I Am What I Am.” When Moses asks God’s name there is a possibility it was not actually known by the children of Abraham until this time or they wanted to know it to exercise the kind of power that heathens did with their deities.

  Regardless if they knew it before or not, God’s offering the name YHWH is a defiant reply to Moses. It is a “name” with a circular meaning. God’s name means Who God happens to be now, in the past, and who and whatever God chooses to be and act as in the future. It is circular reasoning at its best in that it actually is not a “shem” or handle. In explaining himself by an ineffable formula, God was in essence saying that no one could have a “handle” on him. "What's my name? My name is something I don't need to have because everything is nameless by comparison with Me."

  God’s name is like the Ark of the Covenant and the inner Holy of Holies found in the Tabernacle and later the Temples of Jerusalem: rarely used and by few. The reason is that Hebrew custom followed an ancient practice regarding sacred things: that which is holy is the opposite of that which was mundane. Mundane things are commonly employed, used by anyone, always being handled. But holy things are the opposite. Holy things are not commonly employed, used by a few, almost never handled, if at all.

  Holy things may always be present, but using them like they were everyday things turned them into mundane things, even profaning them. While the Holy of Holies and its contents was constantly in the center of Israel, it use and function was rare.

  The same goes for the “shem” of God. It is always there in Scripture, but it is not a common name or handle. You can say my name over and over again: Caleb, Caleb, Caleb. You can name other people or things “Caleb.” You can even name a dog “Caleb” (though that would be redundant since the name “Caleb” basically means “dog”). But if you do that with God’s name, then it isn’t special anymore. It becomes mundane, even profane since it is a mishandling of a holy thing. This is why Jews don’t pronounce it. In fact we often say “HaShem” instead, meaning “The Name” instead of uttering YHWH in whatever form you prefer.

  Finally a note how Jesus “handled” the Divine Name. Non-Jews often read Matthew 6.7 in a very un-Jewish way: “When you are praying, do not repeat [babble] empty phrases…” And they leave it at that, claiming that Jesus is talking about being repetitive in prayers.

  Non-Jews tend to leave the part out about themselves, for it reads in its entirety: “When you are praying, do not repeat empty phrases like the Gentiles do.”

  In Jesus’ day, pagans believed that gods would only answer prayers if you called them by their name. In fact, some of the heathen taught that unless one properly uttered a divine name one could not expect to even get the attention of a deity in prayer. So what did they do? They created long lists of phrases which offered various pronunciations of divine names, sometimes to ensure that they aroused the attention of their gods and sometimes to possibly attract a new god who was known by that “accidental” utterance. Some lists had just one proper name of a deity but included all the titles the deity also had, and it was believed by some Gentiles that it was required of the deity that one repeated the names and all the proper titles for the prayer to be accepted or the attention of a deity to be aroused.

  Jesus contrasts this with: “Don’t be like them, for your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.” (Mt 6.8) In other words the God of Abraham did not need his name uttered as if one needed to get his attention or use a formula to get a prayer through to God. God’s attention is always upon his creation and knows the needs of people before their asking, let alone the use of a name. Names can’t control God or arouse his attention or ensure your prayers are heard or accepted. The God of Abraham isn’t a God that requires such pagan trappings. God's not defined by human spellings or utterances. God defines and names us.

  So while I understand and can appreciate where those who choose to use the Name are coming from, realize that its regular use is not what was meant by its frequency of appearance by the Jews who inscribed it.
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  FayeDunaway

  Caleb, wow, Many thanks. So interesting!!!
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  SimonSays

  Would this point of view be as a Sadducees or Pharisees by which Jesus was in constant conflict with them? That’s why the Jews are no longer the chosen people for killing Jesus for attempting to teach the people the true form of God’s laws and ways by confusing or misinterpreting Gods laws to benefit only themselves not the people, one of many would be the personal name of God.

  The Sadducees: During the time of Christ and the New Testament era, the Sadducees were aristocrats. They tended to be wealthy and held powerful positions, including that of chief priests and high priest, and they held the majority of the 70 seats of the ruling council called the Sanhedrin. They worked hard to keep the peace by agreeing with the decisions of Rome (Israel at this time was under Roman control), and they seemed to be more concerned with politics than religion. Because they were accommodating to Rome and were the wealthy upper class, they did not relate well to the common man, nor did the common man hold them in high opinion. The common man related better to those who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. Though the Sadducees held the majority of seats in the Sanhedrin, history indicates that much of the time they had to go along with the ideas of the Pharisaic minority, because the Pharisees were popular with the masses.
  
  Religiously, the Sadducees were more conservative in one main area of doctrine. The Pharisees gave oral tradition equal authority to the written Word of God, while the Sadducees considered only the written Word to be from God. The Sadducees preserved the authority of the written Word of God, especially the books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). While they could be commended for this, they definitely were not perfect in their doctrinal views. The following is a brief list of beliefs they held that contradict Scripture:
  
  1. they were extremely self-sufficient to the point of denying God's involvement in everyday life.
  
  2. They denied any resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23; Mark 12:18-27; Acts 23:8).
  
  3. They denied any afterlife, holding that the soul perished at death, and therefore denying any penalty or reward after the earthly life.
  
  4. They denied the existence of a spiritual world, i.e., angels and demons (Acts 23:8).
  
  Because the Sadducees were more concerned with politics than religion, they were unconcerned with Jesus until they became afraid He might bring unwanted Roman attention. It was at this point that the Sadducees and Pharisees united and conspired to put Christ to death (John 11:48-50; Mark 14:53; 15:1). Other mentions of the Sadducees are found in Acts 4:1 and Acts 5:17, and the Sadducees are implicated in the death of James by the historian Josephus (Acts 12:1-2).
  
  The Sadducees ceased to exist in A.D. 70. Since this party existed because of their political and priestly ties, when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70, the Sadducees were also destroyed.
  
  The Pharisees: In contrast to the Sadducees, the Pharisees were mostly middle-class businessmen, and therefore were in contact with the common man. The Pharisees were held in much higher esteem by the common man than the Sadducees. Though they were a minority in the Sanhedrin and held a minority number of positions as priests, they seemed to control the decision making of the Sanhedrin far more than the Sadducees did, again because they had the support of the people.
  
  Religiously, they accepted the written Word as inspired by God. At the time of Christ's earthly ministry, this would have been what our Old Testament is now. But they also gave equal authority to oral tradition and attempted to defend this position by saying it went all the way back to Moses. Evolving over the centuries, these traditions added to God's Word, which is forbidden (Deuteronomy 4:2), and the Pharisees sought to strictly obey these traditions along with the Old Testament. The Gospels abound with examples of the Pharisees treating these traditions as equal to God's Word (Matthew 9:14; 15:1-9; 23:5; 23:16, 23, Mark 7:1-23; Luke 11:42). However, they did remain true to God's Word in reference to certain other important doctrines. In contrast to the Sadducees, they believed the following:
  
  1. they believed that God controlled all things, yet decisions made by individuals also contributed to the course of a person's life.
  
  2. They believed in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6).
  
  3. They believed in an afterlife, with appropriate reward and punishment on an individual basis.
  
  4. They believed in the existence of angels and demons (Acts 23:8).
  
  Though the Pharisees were rivals of the Sadducees, they managed to set aside their differences on one occasion—the trial of Christ. It was at this point that the Sadducees and Pharisees united to put Christ to death (Mark 14:53; 15:1; John 11:48-50).
  
  While the Sadducees ceased to exist after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Pharisees, who were more concerned with religion than politics, continued to exist. In fact, the Pharisees were against the rebellion that brought on Jerusalem's destruction in A.D. 70, and they were the first to make peace with the Romans afterward. The Pharisees were also responsible for the compilation of the Mishnah, an important document with reference to the continuation of Judaism beyond the destruction of the temple.
  
  Both the Pharisees and the Sadducees earned numerous rebukes from Jesus. Perhaps the best lesson we can learn from the Pharisees and Sadducees is to not be like them. Unlike the Sadducees, we are to believe everything the Bible says, including the miraculous and the afterlife. Unlike the Pharisees, we are not to treat traditions as having equal authority as Scripture, and we are not to allow our relationship with God to be reduced to a legalistic list of rules and rituals.