Jehovahs Witnesses and the Name , HOW Important. ?

by smiddy 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • smiddy
    smiddy

    Jehovah`s Witnesses place great emphasis on the importance of GOD`s Name as Jehovah .So much so that they are often accused by Christendom`s religions as substituting Jehovah for Christ.

    The old testament ( Hebrew Scriptures identify GOD as the tetragrammaton four Hebrew Consanants YHWH and not JHVH. as mistakenly believed by a 13th Century Spanish Monk .

    Modern scholars including the J.W.`s agree that the more accurate pronunciation of Gods name would be more nearer to YAHWEH than the name Jehovah .

    So why do J.W.`s insist on the name ? Jehovah ? ? stubbornness / arrogance and a failure to admit we were wrong.

    smiddy

    The New Testament ( Christian Greek Scriptures ) Identify God as LORD

  • Mad Irishman
    Mad Irishman

    Smiddy,

    I don't understand why ex-JW's get so hung up on this.

    "Jehovah" is the universal English term for God's name. It isn't a JW thing. George Washington used it. Thomas Jefferson used it. Abraham Lincoln used it. Herman Melville used it. Ernest Hemmingway used it. For goodness sake, Steven Spielberg even used it in the 3rd Indiana Jones movie.

    If you go and find most English Bibles that pre-date WWII you find the term Jehovah used as God's name. 17th, 18th, and 19th Century English and America literature is full of the use of Jehovah. It is just an English reference to God's name. I've never thought it had anything to do with JW's, especially when I read "Jehovah" in use in American literature and American history growing up over and over and over.

    The colonists used the term Jehovah for God's name. That was 400 years ago in America. There were no JW's then.

  • Simon
    Simon
    Steven Spielberg even used it in the 3rd Indiana Jones movie.

    Some JWs at the KH after seeing it were all excited "see, see - it shows we're right !!"

    What idiots.

  • Mad Irishman
    Mad Irishman

    They are right Simon. "Jehovah" is the English term for God's name. It was for hundreds of years before JW's. It is just out of fashion now.

  • Giordano
    Giordano

    Apparently Jesus didn't use it.

    I don't understand why ex-JW's get so hung up on this.

    Perhaps because it was Rutherford and Company that came up with what had become a more obscure name back in 1934 to re-brand themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses in an attempt to create distance from the huge group of International Bible Students who had hauled ass away form the WTBTS a publishing company which decided that it was more profitable to become a religion tax wise.

    "Tyndale and other pioneer English Protestant translations such as the Geneva Bible and the King James Version.[2] It is still used in some translations, such as the New World Translation and Young's Literal Translation, but it is does not appear in most mainstream English translations, as the terms "Lord" or "LORD": used instead, generally indicating that the corresponding Hebrew is Yahweh or YHWH.[3][4]:5

    • The Revised Standard Version (1952), an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901, replaced all 6,823 usages of Jehovah in the 1901 text with "LORD" or "GOD", depending on whether the Hebrew of the verse in question is read "Adonai" or "Elohim" in Jewish practice. A footnote on Exodus 3:15 says: "The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH." The preface states: "The word 'Jehovah' does not accurately represent any form of the name ever used in Hebrew".[102]

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah#Summary_of_discourses

    William Tyndale, in his 1530 translation of the first five books of the English Bible, at Exodus 6:3 renders the divine name as Iehovah. (Not a misspelling)

    The rest of the bibles listed show very limited use of the name with one or two exceptions.

  • Finkelstein
    Finkelstein

    The WTS started using the name Jehovah because it purposely distinguished itself from the rest of Christendom

    (false religion) Since we use Jehovah or YHWH we are directing are worship to him and not just his lessor son.

    Most of Christendom worship Jesus Christ , we instead worship Jehovah the one and true god but recognize and accept his son Jesus Christ.

    The WTS has concluded that focusing worship solely toward Jesus Christ is wrong and it was not done so by the old and original faithful servants pre the arrival of Jesus Christ.

    But its clear to see that the name Jehovah is a wrongly devised interpretation of YHWH, they recently acknowledged that which is ironically funny.

    Well what do you expect ? J Rutherford was a lawyer not a academically trained bible scholar.

  • Mad Irishman
    Mad Irishman

    Giordano,

    You don't know what you're talking about. Go read English literature being written in colonial America and all they use is the name Jehovah. The Puritans in Plymouth used it. Roger Williams in Rhode Island used it. It is even on Anne Hutchinson's grave stone (a founder of Rhode Island). Jehovah is on gravestones all over New England in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. People started talking it out of Bibles at the turn of the 20th Century. It was there all those years before that. Really, it is mind-numbing how ignorant people are of our own American history.

    The term Jehovah was not obscure in American literature until the 20th Century. Before the 20th Century when most Americans spoke of God they used the name Jehovah. Why do you think all the great writers pre-WWI in the U.S. used Jehovah? Why did Ernest Hemingway use Jehovah? Why is it used in American Cinema pre-1960's so much. I've gone to college. I've studied English Lit and American Cinema. You're brain washing yourself if you want to contradict fact.

    That is a fact. To try and rewrite history is obscene and rather bizarre. Jehovah's Witnesses did not invent the name "Jehovah" in the English language.

    No offense, but go study English literature and British history and American history. You really need to brush up on it. You're embarrassing yourself.

  • johnamos
    johnamos

    Yehoshua (Jehoshua) [YHVH Is Salvation] shortened form Yeshua (Joshua)

    Greek for Yeshua is Iesous

    Latin for Iesous is Iesus

    English for Iesus is Jesus

    Hebrew יהוה (Yod Heh Vav Heh)

    Yehoshaphat (Jehoshaphat) [YHVH Is Judge]

    Yehoram (Jehoram) [YHVH Is Exalted]

    Zekharyah (Zechariah) [YHVH Has Remembered]

    Tzefanyah (Zephaniah) [YHVH Has Concealed]

    Yah (Jah)

    Halleluyah (Hallelujah)

    YHVH JHVH

    Yehovah Jehovah
  • Crazyguy
    Crazyguy
    There are certain doctrines that are taught that make jws believe thier all that and a bag of chips. I once was talking about jehovah's name not being correct and an elder started to get all upset. Another time i brought out that going from door t door was not a command by Paul just a statement, again another elder started to get all defensive. Thier told certain things to make them believe they are the one and only and if someone brings it out that thier incorrect Watch Out. So yes the name Jehovah is big to JWs and it constitutes part of thier good news.
  • oppostate
    oppostate
    The old testament ( Hebrew Scriptures identify GOD as the tetragrammaton four Hebrew Consanants YHWH and not JHVH. as mistakenly believed by a 13th Century Spanish Monk .

    Sorry Smiddy, not true.

    Repeating idiotic fallacies about the Tetragram does not make them true.

    The English Y comes from the Greek alphabet. In Latin the sound was made with an I and later became a J to differentiate between the vowel and the consonant. The W is just a double letter, originally the U and V were the same letter and just like with I and J the U became the vowel and the V the consonant.

    To me it is very annoying to read ignorant suppositions stated as truth. Isn't that the very reason why many of us dislike the WT.

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