New WT...Revised...The Name Jehovah

by Legacy 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  Legacy

  Hi All,

  Is Jehovah a Hebrew name? Why I ask, because last night after the AGM meeting I was thinking...Would God name himself a Jewish name, since he in not partial...Would he name himself a name that folks could get all puffed up about & say see...God is a jew. Also, Jesus, well, he came from the line of Jews, not really. Joseph wasn't his real dad. Mary must have been a jew. Anyway, maybe God never gave anyone his name because he knew what controversy it would create. So when asked his name, he said, I am...I think his name is just simply .."GOD"...In the muslim faith his name is Allah, in other countries, his name is Buddah...I think God is named by the folks who live in a certain country....if you lived in an African country, wouldn't you name God, an African name...

  This is just a thought...

  Legacy
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  slimboyfat

  JWs have argued that Hebrew was the original language, so God's name in that language could be argued to be "universal" according to that logic.
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  Phizzy

  It seems that Yahweh was introduced, in the early years of the emergence of a people who later identified themselves as Israel, from Edom, so what language did they speak, those early Edomites ? I am not sure, but I would guess that the Etymology of Yahweh is not ultimately Hebrew.

  Interestingly the Canaanite people who became Israel originally worshipped a god called El, preserved in the name Israel and many more names. Yahweh was introduced first of all with his consort (wife) Asherah.

  Monotheism and the exclusive worship of Yahweh was a late development, probably not really getting impetus until the return from Babylon.

  Peoples invent their own God, and name him how they will.

  Man Created God(s).
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  Apognophos

  Ultimately, it can be argued that the name YHWH -- "Yahweh" or "Yaho" or however it was said -- is not Jewish. It is a name which expresses an action, and it is written in Hebrew because the Jews wrote the Old Testament. The problem is that his name's actual meaning should have been translated into other languages, rather than transliterating the sound of his name in Hebrew into those languages' phonetic systems. At that point, it became a personal name instead of a statement about his identity. For instance, instead of allowing a Latinized form of Ieouah to enter English, we should have been calling him "I Cause" all this time, or whatever exactly the name means (which is argued over).
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  fulltimestudent

  Ummm! Of course, if Yahweh was truly a universal god, you'd have a point. But Yahweh is NOT a universal god, he starts life as a tribal god for Israel.

  Only in Christianity and under the influence of Platonic teachings does he transform into a Universal god.
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  scotoma

  Good point. The reverence for the tetragramaton was obviously a form of idolatry and is part of the leven of the Pharisees.

  It fits into the milieu of middle eastern culture.

  The name Jehovah's Witnesses was part of a MadMan campaign on the part of Judge "Don Draper"-Rutheford.
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  Amelia Ashton

  *** w80 2/1 p. 11 The Divine Name in Later Times ***
  THE NAME “JEHOVAH” BECOMES WIDELY KNOWN
  Interestingly, Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican order, first rendered the divine name as “Jehova.” This form appeared in his book Pugeo Fidei, published in 1270 C.E.—over 700 years ago.
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  Apognophos

  Ummm! Of course, if Yahweh was truly a universal god, you'd have a point. But Yahweh is NOT a universal god, he starts life as a tribal god for Israel.

  Well yes, I do agree with that. I guess I felt like answering from a linguistic perspective, since Legacy's post implied that YHWH is a personal name, when it was actually a statement. Of course more or less all personal names originally were a statement or description in their native language before becoming unchangeable units of speech. But Leolaia once wrote:

  The name is probably a shortening of the longer sentence name yhwh-tsb'wt or Yahweh-Sabaoth (cf. 1 Samuel 1:3, Isaiah 6:1-3, etc.), which the NWT mistranslates as "Jehovah of armies". This rendering is not grammatically correct as it puts a proper name in a construct state; instead yhwh supplies the verb that takes tsb'wt as its object, i.e. "He makes the (divine) armies exist".

  Which makes it clear that YHWH was part of a statement, not just some inherited personal name like John is today.
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  EndofMysteries

  I forgot what tribe/nation/etc, but there was found something ancient engraved as "YHWH and his asherah" which in the bible when Jeremiah was speaking to the israelites about worshipping the "queen of the heavens" may have been her.
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  dog is god

  God never named himself. Those who wrote and translated named "God" "in their image".