"Jehovah" history of the name, a misreading? Insight from our Jewish posters please

[Marie5890]

In our parish we are give what is known as the “Black Book” for Lenten meditations.

The entry for March 4th had me " "

Would love to hear from our Jewish friends about this and what they know.

It says the following…

I AM was considered the divine name as we all know when Moses asked God His name.

In Hebrew I AM was rendered Jahwah, Since Jahweh was so sacred that it was never uttered allowed. Those who proclaimed the Scriptures were taught to substitute the word “Adonai” which means “Lord”

Since the original form of Hebrew language didn’t have vowels, Jahweh would appear as JHWH.

Later written vowels signs were developed and put in.
Whenever the word JHWH appeared, copyists would insert the vowel signs for “Adonai”, as that would remind the reader to substitute that word for the divine name .

As time went by, some didn’t realize the and simply pronounced what was in front of them, the consonants and JHWH with the vowels of Adonai which created the word, “Jehovah”, **which was a word that never existed. **

It’s a misreading that continues in some translations of the Bible still.

 

[meltzerboy]

In our parish we are give what is known as the “Black Book” for Lenten meditations.

The entry for March 4th had me " "

Would love to hear from our Jewish friends about this and what they know.

It says the following…

I AM was considered the divine name as we all know when Moses asked God His name.

In Hebrew I AM was rendered Jahwah, Since Jahweh was so sacred that it was never uttered allowed. Those who proclaimed the Scriptures were taught to substitute the word “Adonai” which means “Lord”

Since the original form of Hebrew language didn’t have vowels, Jahweh would appear as JHWH.

Later written vowels signs were developed and put in.
Whenever the word JHWH appeared, copyists would insert the vowel signs for “Adonai”, as that would remind the reader to substitute that word for the divine name .

As time went by, some didn’t realize the and simply pronounced what was in front of them, the consonants and JHWH with the vowels of Adonai which created the word, “Jehovah”, **which was a word that never existed. **

It’s a misreading that continues in some translations of the Bible still.

I am not at all an authority on this Hebrew linguistic matter (or most others!) but I do know that it is considered wrong to pronounce the full name of G-d. Adonai (or Adoshem) is the scriptural name used, and in conversation Hashem is generally used in place of G-d’s full name. In writing, it is almost the same, except I distinctly recall once seeing J-hovah written in the Siddur as a child and pronouncing what I saw in Hebrew school. The rabbi abruptly corrected me by saying Adonai and left it at that without an explanation. One does not write the full name of G-d for fear of accidentally or even intentionally deleting it, either oneself or by another, which is regarded as sinful.

 

[DaveBj]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah

 

[Michael85]

In our parish we are give what is known as the “Black Book” for Lenten meditations.

The entry for March 4th had me " "

Would love to hear from our Jewish friends about this and what they know.

It says the following…

I AM was considered the divine name as we all know when Moses asked God His name.

In Hebrew I AM was rendered Jahwah, Since Jahweh was so sacred that it was never uttered allowed. Those who proclaimed the Scriptures were taught to substitute the word “Adonai” which means “Lord”

Since the original form of Hebrew language didn’t have vowels, Jahweh would appear as JHWH.

Later written vowels signs were developed and put in.
Whenever the word JHWH appeared, copyists would insert the vowel signs for “Adonai”, as that would remind the reader to substitute that word for the divine name .

As time went by, some didn’t realize the and simply pronounced what was in front of them, the consonants and JHWH with the vowels of Adonai which created the word, “Jehovah”, **which was a word that never existed. **

It’s a misreading that continues in some translations of the Bible still.

Sounds pretty accurate to me based on what I’ve read. However, if you bring this argument up to a Jehovah’s Witness, they will respond by saying that Jesus’ acutal name was Yeshua, but we still call Him Jesus. Therefore, they argue, it’s permissible to refer to God the Father as Jehovah.

The Protestant church that I used to attend had the term “Jehovah” in certain songs in the hymnal, such as “Jehovah Reigns in Majesty” (a setting of Psalm 99).

 

[DaveBj]

Sounds pretty accurate to me based on what I’ve read. However, if you bring this argument up to a Jehovah’s Witness, they will respond by saying that Jesus’ acutal name was Yeshua, but we still call Him Jesus. Therefore, they argue, it’s permissible to refer to God the Father as Jehovah.

The Protestant church that I used to attend had the term “Jehovah” in certain songs in the hymnal, such as “Jehovah Reigns in Majesty” (a setting of Psalm 99).

Yes, this illustrates how linguistic tradition often takes the upper hand. I don’t think that mis-pronunciations like dzhe-HO-va cause God to fall off His throne. If He counts mis-pronunciations as sin, then we’re all in trouble. It’s a lo-o-ong journey from YE-shu -a (Aramaic) or Ye-SHU-a (Hebrew) to DZHEE-sus.

 

[Logically]

if you bring this argument up to a Jehovah’s Witness, they will respond by saying that Jesus’ acutal name was Yeshua, but we still call Him Jesus. Therefore, they argue, it’s permissible to refer to God the Father as Jehovah.
…

You are right. A fair argument I think.

Also the divine name appears all through the Psalms which were songs sometimes sung by crowds of worshippers. So we don’t buy the argument it is not to be pronounced.

I can’t see how anyone can justify deleting it from the Bible.
(Imagine if we took out Jesus name and replaced it with “teacher” because of debate on how it should be pronounced or for fear of blasphemy)

Here is a 4 minute video Jehovah’s Witnesses have produced in hundreds of languages entitled “Does God have a name.”

jw.org/en/publications/books/good-news-from-god/who-is-god/video-gods-name/

The video has some other good arguemnts for using it I feel. At least you can see our point of view.

Enjoy.

 

[adf417]

You are right. A fair argument I think.

Also the divine name appears all through the Psalms which were songs sometimes sung by crowds of worshippers. So we don’t buy the argument it is not to be pronounced.

I can’t see how anyone can justify deleting it from the Bible.
(Imagine if we took out Jesus name and replaced it with “teacher” because of debate on how it should be pronounced or for fear of blasphemy)

Here is a 4 minute video Jehovah’s Witnesses have produced in hundreds of languages entitled “Does God have a name.”

jw.org/en/publications/books/good-news-from-god/who-is-god/video-gods-name/

The video has some other good arguemnts for using it I feel. At least you can see our point of view.

Enjoy.

Greetings Logically,

I noticed the video above still does not reference and is inconsistant with the Watchtower’s 1971 publication of Aid to Bible Understanding, specifically pages 882-885 that refer to how the vowels of the name came about and how “Jehovah is the Best Known english pronunciation” and “certainty of the pronunciation is not now attainable”. The Watchtower publication states clearly the vowels were added to the name in the 13th century by a Spanish monk of the Dominican order, long after the time when the Catholic Church would have “fallen into apostasy”. How could you or the Watchtower trust this information for something so important?

Peace!!!

 

[Logically]

Greetings Logically,

I noticed the video above still does not reference and is inconsistant with the Watchtower’s 1971 publication of Aid to Bible Understanding, specifically pages 882-885 that refer to how the vowels of the name came about and how “Jehovah is the Best Known english pronunciation” and “certainty of the pronunciation is not now attainable”. The Watchtower publication states clearly the vowels were added to the name in the 13th century by a Spanish monk of the Dominican order, long after the time when the Catholic Church would have “fallen into apostasy”. How could you or the Watchtower trust this information for something so important?

Peace!!!

Oh. Cool.: rolleyes:

1971 eh?

We should cut God’s name out of the Bible then - or something.

Enjoy.

 

[adf417]

Oh. Cool.: rolleyes:

1971 eh?

We should cut God’s name out of the Bible then - or something.

Enjoy.

Greetings Logically!

Not if it truly is His name, no, that wasn’t my suggestion. But dont you see how it could have been at best “a fabrication” of the divine name, given the method spelled out in the above publication. I asked “How could you or the Watchtower trust this information for something so important” because of, and rightly so, how the Watchtower professes the importance Of this name, not to mention the source being a Catholic.

Peace!!!