Is jehovah a mis spelling of yahweh?

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SueKrum

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I heard recently that in the origianal printings of scripture, all the places where it says LORD, it used to say yahweh. I can’t quote where I heard it becuase I don’t remember. it was some wierd protestant guy. (No disrespect to protestants intended, this guy was just out there a little) anyway, he said that when the king james as written, along with its many other flaws, they cut out most of the mentions of yahweh and replaced it with LORD but also mispelled yahweh into jehovah. (don’t ask me how. maybe some of the letters looked the same in hebrew or something). I believe it’s in there like 6 times or something. anyway, my husband uses this a lot to discredit the jehovah whitnesses saying that their entire religion is based on a mispelling of God’s real name. Jehovah, nor yahwey appear anywhere in my NAB. I was just wondering if anyone had heard this before and if it were true. ever since my husband started saying this, I kind of crenge when I hear people say jehovah. but I would like to knwo if it were true. thanks
 
Well, the JW’s may use the word Jehovah in this way, but actually it’s just the Latin version of the word Lord. Nothing sinister about it. 😉
 
Ancient Hebrew had no vowels… constants were just strung together and tradtion and context were used to know what words were what.

In the Hebrew scripture, the name of God then was just a group of four letters. In Greek, “four” is “tetra” and letter is “grammaton”.

What I’m taking a long time to get around to saying is that you want to research the “Tetragammaton”.

Here’s some links to get you started:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton
newadvent.org/cathen/08329a.htm
 
This can be a little complicated.

Hebrew was originally written without vowels, so the OT had no vowels. During the first millenium, a group of Jewish scribes, the Masoretes, fearing that meanings would be lost through the diaspora, began placing marks in the Hebrew manuscripts they copied to indicate which vowels applied to the written words which were all consonants.

In Jewish tradition, the Name of God is never spoken. The Name of God in the OT, as God revealed to Moses at the burning bush, is the Hebrew letters Yod-Heh-Vahv-Heh (YHVH), which is rendered in English as “I AM.” These four letters are known a the Tetragrammaton.

Because the Name of God would not be spoken by a Jew reading the text, the vowel marks placed with the YHVH in the text were those for the word Jews would substitute: Adonai, meaning “Lord” in order to remind an oral reader to substitute the right word.

So the result was marks for A-O-A attatched to the consonants YHVH, which was mistakenly transliterated as Y-A-H-O-V-A-H. When the Latin tradition of substituting J for Y is applied, you end up with Jehovah.

It is pretty much universally agreed among linguists that the original pronuciation of the Tetragrammaton was “Yahweh”.
 
the Jehovah’s Witnesses in their Kingdom Interlinear admits that the proper translation is Yahweh.
(3) Another striking characteristic of the NWT is their usage of “Jehovah.” They have done this over 6,000 times in their Bible! But in other literature that they have published, they have gone on record as stating that Yahweh is “the more correct way” to render God’s name! Their actual quote is:
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While inclining to view the pronunciation “Yah.weh” as the more correct way, we have retained the form “Jehovah” because of people’s familiarity with it since the 14th century (The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (KIT), 1969 ed., p. 23).
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By combining the vowel signs of ‘Adho.nay and ‘Elo.him’ with the four consonants of the Tetragrammaton the pronunciations Yeho.wah’ and Yehowih’ were formed. The first of these provided the basis for the Latinized form “Jehova(h).” The first recorded use of this form dates from the thirteenth century C.E. Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican Order, used it in his book Pugeo Fidei of the year 1270. Hebrew scholars generally favor “Yahweh” as the most likely pronunciation (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, pp. 884, 885).(26)
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towerwatch.com/Witnesses/Beliefs/what_do_jws_believe.htm
 
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Della:
Well, the JW’s may use the word Jehovah in this way, but actually it’s just the Latin version of the word Lord. Nothing sinister about it. 😉
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Actually, Dominus is the latin word for Lord. י (yod) ה (heh) ו (vav) ה (heh) or יהוה (YHWH); it is the distinctive personal name of the God of Israel.
 
Just to add more complication to the mix, I will note that certain Orthodox Jews use the word “ha-Shem”–pronounced “hah-SHEM,” literally “The Name”–when referring to the God of Israel.
  • Liberian
 
I’m sure I remember being taught in Scripture lectures that “I am” is actually “e’weh” and “Yahweh” is “he is”.
 
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Maree:
I’m sure I remember being taught in Scripture lectures that “I am” is actually “e’weh” and “Yahweh” is “he is”.
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Maree,

Not to put too fine a point on it, there are three words in question here:

aleph-he-yodh-he = “eh-hi-yeh” = “I am” or “I will be”
yodh-he-yodh-he = “yi-hi-yeh” = “he is” or “he will be”
yodh-he-vav-he = the Name of God

Typographically, a vav looks very similar to a yodh, simply having a longer line projecting down.
  • Liberian
 
I thought that Jehovah was all the vowel sounds taking out the Hebrew word for Lord.
 
Daniel Marsh:
This was fun. 🙂

Everyone is home today sick at my house.
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Glad to provide some diversion. I hope everybody gets well soon.
  • Liberian
 
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