Jehovah? Oh dear.

by Giordano 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Giordano

  Some recent new friends on this forum like friend Kosonen are fixated with God's name being Jehovah...unfortunately they are wrong:

  A quick bit of history:

  "About the 13th century the term “Jehovah” appeared when Christian scholars took the consonants of “Yahweh” and pronounced it with the vowels of “Adonai.” This resulted in the sound “Yahowah,” which has a Latinized spelling of “Jehovah.” The first recorded use of this spelling was made by a Spanish Dominican monk, Raymundus Martini, in 1270.

  Interestingly, this fact is admitted in much Jehovah’s Witness literature, such as their Aid to Bible Understanding (p. 885). This is surprising because Jehovah’s Witnesses loathe the Catholic Church and have done everything in their power to strip their church of traces of Catholicism. Despite this, their group’s very name contains a Catholic “invention,” the name “Jehovah.

  Jehovah’s Witnesses blast orthodox Christendom for “hiding the name of God” by replacing “Jehovah” with “the Lord” whenever “Jehovah” appears in Scripture.

  They charge this is a Jewish “superstition” that dishonors God (which it does not). Yet their own organization has a name that was invented as a result of the same thinking that produced the use of “the Lord.”
  

  https://www.catholic.com/qa/is-gods-name-yahweh-or-jehovah

  By the way this was a cool move by the Catholic CHurch as there was no J in the Hebrew alphabet until some 400 years ago.

  So how did the JW's become the JW's.

  Rutherford dreamed it up. Probably with Freddie Franz whispering in his ear.

  There was ONE scripture in the bible that told Isaiah to become a witness for good...... old YHWH. You remember him ......the god no one could call by name. It was the only mention ever made of god's name. Sort of like J.R. from the old T.V. show....... Dallas.

  On the other hand being a witness for Jesus.......sorry Yeshiva....was mentioned some 22 times in the New testament.

  So why did Rutherford pass up calling their newly minted religion Jesus's Witnesses or Jesus's Christian Witnesses......... which would have been a self explanatory name when knocking on doors?

  Rutherford probably had his reasons which centered around his importance. He was also drunk on a daily basis. But like everything he touched........ he screwed up.

  Calling themselves the JW's created a false religion that to this day....... one has to explain the name of their God.

  Using the name on this site weakens any argument you can make.
• 

  truth_b_known

  Adding the vowels of Adonai to YHWH was done to remind the reader to say "Lord" when seeing YHWH in print. The J comes into play from translating the Bible into German. J in German is pronounced like the English Y.
• 

  stan livedeath

  the hebrew language was written " backwards'--i.e from right to left.

  so YHWH should really be HWHY, which looks like HUWEE

  Hughie--sounds better to me..sort of American....
• 

  Finkelstein

  Yes it is kind of ironic that the JWS named their organization from a source they describe as false religion ( Catholicism ) .

  When a certain sect of people separated from the Canaanite civilization and went into a monotheistic style of worship from polytheism, Elyon was used as a formulation name of their god and later associated with Yahweh..

  Elyon (Biblical Hebrew עליון; Masoretic ʿElyōn) is an epithet of the God of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. ʾĒl ʿElyōn is usually rendered in English as "God Most High", and similarly in the Septuagint as ὁ Θεός ὁ ὕψιστος ("God the highest").

  The term also has mundane uses, such as "upper" (where the ending in both roots is a locative, not superlative or comparative), "top", or "uppermost", referring simply to the position of objects (e.g. applied to a basket in Genesis 40.17 or to a chamber in Ezekiel 42.5).

  Contents

  • 1Hebrew Bible
    • 1.1The compound ʼĒl ʻElyōn
    • 1.2ʽElyōn standing alone
  • 2Non-biblical use
    • 2.1Sfire I Treaty
    • 2.2Sanchuniathon
  • 3See also
  • 4References
    • 4.1Citations
    • 4.2Bibliography

  Hebrew Bible[edit]

  The compound ʼĒl ʻElyōn[edit]

  The compound name ʼĒl ʻElyōn 'God Most High' occurs in Genesis 14:18–20 as the God whose priest was Melchizedek, king of Salem. The form appears again almost immediately in verse 22, used by Abraham in an oath to the king of Sodom. In this verse the name of God also occurs in apposition to ʼĒl ʻElyōn in the Masoretic Text but is absent in the Samaritan version, in the Septuagint translation, and in Symmachus.[citation needed]

  Its occurrence here was one foundation of a theory first espoused by Julius Wellhausen that ʼĒl ʻElyōn was an ancient god of Salem (for other reasons understood here to mean Jerusalem), later equated with God.[citation needed]

  The only other occurrence of the compound expression is in Psalms 78:35: "And they remembered that God [ʼĒlōhīm] was their rock, and the high God [ʼĒl ʻElyōn] their redeemer."

  The name is repeated later in the chapter, but with a variation: verse fifty-six says ʼElohim ʻElyōn.

  It has been suggested that the reference to "ʼĒl ʻElyōn, maker of heaven and earth" in Genesis 14:19 and 22 reflects a Canaanite background. The phrasing in Genesis resembles a retelling of Canaanite religious traditions in Philo of Byblos's account of Phoenician history, in which ʻElyōn was the progenitor of Ouranos ("Sky") and Gaia ("Earth").[1]

  ʽElyōn standing alone[edit]

  The name ʽElyōn 'Most High' standing alone is found in many poetic passages, especially in the Psalms.

  It appears in Balaam's verse oracle in Numbers 24:16 as a separate name parallel to Ēl.

  It appears in Moses' final song in Deuteronomy 32:8 (a much discussed verse). A translation of the Masoretic text:

  When the Most High (ʽElyōn) divided nations,
  

  he separated the sons of man (Ādām);
  he set the bounds of the masses
  

  according to the number of the sons of Israel

  Many Septuagint manuscripts have in place of "sons of Israel", angelōn theou 'angels of God' and a few have huiōn theou 'sons of God'. The Dead Sea Scrolls fragment 4QDeutj reads bny ’lwhm 'sons of God' ('sons of ’Elohim'). The New Revised Standard Version translates this as "he fixed the boundaries … according to the number of the gods".[2]

  This passage appears to identify ʽElyōn with ’Elohim, but not necessarily with Yahweh. It can be read to mean that ʽElyōn separated mankind into 70 nations according to his 70 sons (the 70 sons of Ēl being mentioned in the Ugaritic texts), each of these sons to be the tutelary deity over one of the 70 nations, one of them being the god of Israel, Yahweh. Alternatively, it may mean that ʽElyōn, having given the other nations to his sons, now takes Israel for himself under the name of the Tetragrammaton. Both interpretations have supporters.[citation needed]

  In Isaiah 14:13–14 ʽElyōn is used in a very mystical context in the passage providing the basis for later speculation on the fall of Satan where the rebellious prince of Babylon is pictured as boasting:

  I shall be enthroned in the mount of the council in the farthest north [or farthest Zaphon]
  

  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
  

  I will be like the Most High.

  But ’Elyōn is in other places firmly identified with Yahweh, as in 2 Samuel 22:14:

  The Lord [YHWH] thundered from heaven,
  and the Most High [ʽElyōn] uttered his voice.

  Also Psalm 97:9: "For you, Lord [YHWH], are Most High [ʽelyōn] over all the earth; you are raised high over all the gods."
• 

  oppostate

  giordano is quite mistaken.

  Jehovah is an adequate transliteration of the divine name into English.

  Just like Elijah is correct.

  Just like Jeremiah is correct.

  Just like Joshua/Jehoshua is correct.

  Just like Judah/Jehudah is correct.

  As a matter of fact there is only one letter difference between Judah's name and the tetragram.

  YHWDH is Judah which was pronounced according to its letters like YeHooDaH, and if you take that D out, you are left with the tetragram which should be pronounced then like Ye-Hoo-aH according to its Hebrew letters..

  Write it as it would sound in Latin letters and you end up with Iehovah, since the letter I was like our English Y, and the V was like a W or OO sound.

  In English spelling this became traditionally spelled with a J like so many other Bible names.
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  It is interesting that the Main verse used to affirm the name, Jehovah's Witnesses (Isaiah 43:10) categorically states that no god was formed before God or after him. So this eliminates the possibility that Jesus was a created god with God.
• 

  stan livedeath

  i like the use of name and title--to serve as a kind of reminder..

  jehovah:god

  jesus:christ

  satan:devil

  rutherford:judge

  morris:turd.
• 

  Doctor Who

  I've always thought people were way to fixated on it. I speak English. That made up God from the Hebrews, in English, is pronounced Jehovah. I could give a rats ass on how it was pronounced in Israel 3000 years ago, with some dead language that no one speaks.
  
• 

  smiddy3

  Isaiah 43:10-12 ,That scripture was applied to the Israelites long before the 20th Century was upon us when Rutherford decided to apply it to his religion

  When that scripture was uttered to the israelites did they then understand that were to identify themselves as Jehovah`s Witnesses ? no ,and they never did .

  If it had have been the intention of God for them to do that then Jesus would have rebuked them and he would have made sure they adopted that name .But he did no such thing.

  But what do we find in the Bible ? Followers of Jesus were , " By Divine Providence called Christians" ,not Jehovah`s Witnesses.
• 

  Phizzy

  In Hebrew it is of course written HWHY , which we then read from right to left, YHWH, the sensible way of reading LOL. In Hebrew this would be, read from right to left, yodh, he, waw and he.

  The word has been known since before the time of William Tyndale. in English, as Jehovah.

  To insist upon changing this to a more accurate pronunciation is just pointless and silly in IMHO, in general writing and conversation, though I can see why Academics may wish to do so, thye don't want to be mistaken for J.W's do they ? ha ha. As has been stated many times, the way the early Israelites pronounced it can only be guessed at.

  Many words transliterated in to English have changed dramatically since they came in to usage. Do we change them all back to something more "original" ? Good luck with that.

  The org's argument that "Jehovah" is well known and recognised is valid, their insistence on putting it in to the N.T so many times is more doubtful, and the way they have done it is deliberately not consistent, and so is dishonest. Also, their constant overuse of it is not justified, if "Jehovah" in their mind is the only god, and Jesus merely his firstborn, why use a personal name for god at all ?