by ruffian 56 Replies latest jw friends
ruffian,
I don't know if it was mentioned, but what you just wrote fits in with an idea I have. I think Jesus told us how to address God in the Lord's prayer - Our Father.
I wanted to mention, that although I am not Catholic, I occasionally watch the Catholic channel on cable tv. I like to listen to the Hail Mary and The Lord's Prayer in the Catholic Mass. I also like Sister Angelica.
JW72, et al,
Please don't debate with this nice woman about the foundations of her faith. She not here for that, and already told YK she doesn't want it. She came here for information, which we can provide. I think out of respect for her, we should let it go at that.
It might be interesting to note, if you check out the bibliogriphy in the first few releases of the NWT, before 1960, you might notice the references they used to establish why they feel justified in using Jehovah in place of lord, or god in the New Testiment. Whe you do you will notice these "j" references, ALL of them are references to people that the WTS say's are apostates, jesuits, Catholics, Babylon the Great, The whore of christendom. Hmmm I wonder how reliable these are?
But the other funny part of this is, that these references only refer to a few scraps of manuscripts that the New testiment was translated into Hebrew and are not as old as the greek, it is not found in any Greek manuscripts at all.
Something to ponder, when someone uses an "apostates" information to say that they are correct in doing something wrong.
seedy
Amos is old testament, so it doesnt disprove that the apostles new any such thing and my Douay-Rheims the word Lord not Jehovah in it, so again no proof.
In the book of Amos the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible uses the name of Yahweh. That indicates that the YHWH was originally used in that verse. So when the apostles quoted that verse they would have no doubt used the name. That was in fact the whole point of Jame's citing Amos in the first place. (I was mistaken earlier when I referred to Peter quoting Amos. It was actually James, who happened to refer to Peter during his speech at Acts) He was using that text to prove that the God of the Hebrews, who called himself by that name, was now giving his name to non Jewish people. If the apostles would have merely used the name Lord it would have been meaningless. The fact is that all gods had names. The Bible even mentions the names of the false gods like Chemosh, Dagon, Nisroch, Molech, and the various local baals, like the Baal of Peor, etc. So, it would have been necessary for the apostles to actually use the name Jehovah, or Yahweh if you prefer, to make the point that the Hebrews' God was, with the advent of Christianity, going international, as it were.
St John wrote the book of Apocalypse. How do you know that it is the same Jah in that referance?
John wrote the Apocalypse in Greek, yet the word Halleujah is transilerated from the Hebrew language. Transliterated means that the word is lifted directly from one language without translating it. The expression halleujah occurs over 20 times in the Hebrew Bible, what you call the Old Testament. In the NWT that expression is translated as "Praise Jah you people." One place it occurs is Psalm 104:35.
And even if it did Im pretty interested in this "tribal" god theory and the Psalms could have adapted the word from the old tribal name.
Your own Catholic scholars recognize that God had a distinctive personal name that he revealed to his people. The tribal god theory is nonsense. As I pointed out previously, the revelation that Jehovah made of himself was totally unique. The Hebrews in fact often were frequently seduced to worship various local baals and what amounted to tribal gods, like Chemosh and Molech. Jehovah's word could not have come from such ignorant people as existed at that time. The revelation of Jehovah was completely revolutionary at the time, and still is for that matter, but the point is it did not come FROM the Hebrews, it came TO them and THROUGH them merely.
None of the text in the N.T was changed.
That may not necessarily be true. Here's a brief discussion of that issue as found in one of the Watchtower's reference works.
*** it-2 9-10 Jehovah ***
Why is the divine name in its full form not in any available ancient manuscript of the Christian Greek Scriptures?
The argument long presented was that the inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures made their quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures on the basis of the Septuagint, and that, since this version substituted Ky'ri·os or The·os' for the Tetragrammaton, these writers did not use the name Jehovah. As has been shown, this argument is no longer valid. Commenting on the fact that the oldest fragments of the Greek Septuagint do contain the divine name in its Hebrew form, Dr. P. Kahle says: "We now know that the Greek Bible text [the Septuagint] as far as it was written by Jews for Jews did not translate the Divine name by kyrios, but the Tetragrammaton written with Hebrew or Greek letters was retained in such MSS [manuscripts]. It was the Christians who replaced the Tetragrammaton by kyrios, when the divine name written in Hebrew letters was not understood any more." (The Cairo Geniza, Oxford, 1959, p. 222) When did this change in the Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures take place?
It evidently took place in the centuries following the death of Jesus and his apostles. In Aquila's Greek version, dating from the second century C.E., the Tetragrammaton still appeared in Hebrew characters. Around 245 C.E., the noted scholar Origen produced his Hexapla, a six-column reproduction of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures: (1) in their original Hebrew and Aramaic, accompanied by (2) a transliteration into Greek, and by the Greek versions of (3) Aquila, (4) Symmachus, (5) the Septuagint, and (6) Theodotion. On the evidence of the fragmentary copies now known, Professor W. G. Waddell says: "In Origen's Hexapla . . . the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and LXX [Septuagint] all represented JHWH by PIPI; in the second column of the Hexapla the Tetragrammaton was written in Hebrew characters." (The Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford, Vol. XLV, 1944, pp. 158, 159) Others believe the original text of Origen's Hexapla used Hebrew characters for the Tetragrammaton in all its columns. Origen himself stated that "in the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters, yet not in today's Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones."
As late as the fourth century C.E., Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate, says in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings: "And we find the name of God, the Tetragrammaton [i.e., %&%*], in certain Greek volumes even to this day expressed in ancient letters." In a letter written at Rome, 384 C.E., Jerome states: "The ninth [name of God] is the Tetragrammaton, which they considered [a·nek·pho'ne·ton], that is, unspeakable, and it is written with these letters, Iod, He, Vau, He. Certain ignorant ones, because of the similarity of the characters, when they would find it in Greek books, were accustomed to read PIPI [Greek letters corresponding to the Roman letters PIPI]."-Papyrus Grecs Bibliques, by F. Dunand, Cairo, 1966, p. 47, ftn. 4.
The so-called Christians, then, who "replaced the Tetragrammaton by kyrios" in the Septuagint copies, were not the early disciples of Jesus. They were persons of later centuries, when the foretold apostasy was well developed and had corrupted the purity of Christian teachings.-2Th 2:3; 1Ti 4:1.
/ You Know
Well frankly He scares the hell out of me
Jehovah is an awe-inspiring God, there's no question about it. If you fear his awesome majesty there is in fact hope for you. / You Know
ruffian,
I don't know if it was mentioned, but what you just wrote fits in with an idea I have. I think Jesus told us how to address God in the Lord's prayer - Our Father.
I wanted to mention, that although I am not Catholic, I occasionally watch the Catholic channel on cable tv. I like to listen to the Hail Mary and The Lord's Prayer in the Catholic Mass. I also like Sister Angelica.
Larc
Thanks for the mention of the Lords prayer. I had thought it myself and had forgotten it because I hadnt written it down. Im glad to see that it is actually something that others find credible. I wish I got EWTN cant get it here. Mother Angelica is a hoot I listen to her on the radio. She may be funny, but she gets right to the point and doent hold back any punches. I bet You Know wouldnt be able to hold his own with her<grin>.What faith are you Larc?
"In the book of Amos the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible uses the name of Yahweh. That indicates that the YHWH was originally used in that verse."
It may indicate it to you but not to me. Why would I find the NEW anything to be accurate. I stick with the Douay-Rheims or Ignatious version it is a much more accurate translation.
It may indicate it to you but not to me. Why would I find the NEW anything to be accurate. I stick with the Douay-Rheims or Ignatious version it is a much more accurate translation.
That is foolish reasoning and just plain wrong. The Douay was translated at a time when Biblical scholarship was at a low point. It was a hastily thrown together translation that was motivated by the desire of the Vatican not to be upstaged by the upstart Chruch of England that came out with the King James Bible in 1611. For hundreds of years prior to that time the Catholic Chruch tried to stiffle the Bible and discouraged its study and translation into any language but Latin. The Vatican in fact sponsored numerous inquisitions that tortured and murdered men and women that dared to even read the book. Since those Dark Ages of ignorance, much more has come to light regarding how the Bible should be translated and understood. As regards the Divine Name though, in the post above, Jerome was quoted because he recognized that the original NT scriptures had the YHWH and that it was later removed. In case you didn't know, Jerome was the first to translate the Bible into Latin. The Vatican used his translation for centuries thereafter. / You Know
Ruff,
I have a copy of the New English Bible which has the research and support of eleven different groups including Baptist, Methodists, presbyterians, church of England, Church of Scotland and others.
In the introduction it says that it used the R. Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (3rd edition, 1937)which was based on the earliest surviving MSS dating from the ninth to eleventh centuries A.D. It goes on to add:"The traditional text was originally written only in consonants, but in order to preserve what they regarded as the correct pronunciation of the words the Rabbis added vowel-signs to the text.. . . The vowels are here represented by means of strokes and dots added to the consonantal text, and this method of vocalization made it possible for the Rabbis to indicate variant readings which they preferred, without meddling with the consonants: they put in the margin of their manuscript the consonants of the reading whey wished to adopt and added the vowel-signs of this reading to the consonants in the text which they were rejecting. The reader knew that he was to pronounce the consonants in the margin with the vowels in the text.
One variation of this convention is of special importance, inasmuch as it affects the divine name. This personal proper name, written with the consonants YHWH was considered too sacred to be uttered, so the vowels for the words 'my Lord" or "God" were added to the consonants YHWH, and the reader was warned by these vowels that he must substitute other consonants. This change having to be made so frequently, the Rabbis did not consider it necessary to put the consonants of the new reading in the margin. In course of time the true pronunciation of the divine name, probably Yahweh, passed into oblivion, and YHWH was read with the intruded vowels, the vowels of an entirely different word, namely 'my Lord' or 'God'. In late medieval times this mispronunciation became current as Jehova, and it was taken over as Jehovah by the Reformers in Protestant Bibles. The present translators have retained this incurrect but customary form in the text of passages where the name is explained with a note on its pronunciation (Exodus 3:15) and in four place-names of which it forms a constituent element; elsewhere they have followed ancient translators in substituting "LORD' or "GOD', printed as here in capital letters for the Hebrew name."
It would seem to me that inasmuch as the scholars who put this bible together knew the Divine name we would see it through their copy of the Bible. Yet only one time as mentioned above do they use the name in a footnote. Not many seem to want to go public with the name.
The new Jerusalem Bible uses the name as Yahweh.
When Acts 15:14 says that God would take out of all the nations a people for his name, it would not be a title as used by the multitude of people who call on some god. It would need to be distinctive. The name "Jehovah" as the 15th century reformers called him serves to seperate him from all other gods. Some call him Yehowah, or Yahweh, which is still positive identification.
My grandfather's name (in Europe) was "Wassil". When he came to America it was written as "William". I guess you would call that being Americanized, yet he still had an identifying name. He would answer to both names.
Just my thoughts at this late hour.
RVW
