The divine name is obviously very important. It occurs over 6000 times in the original Hebrew scriptures!
Jesus put “Hallowed be thy name” as the first point in the model prayer.
Again, as I stated in my previous post, in Jewish terms one handles something that is holy rarely or differently than common, mundane things. Human names and the names of pagan gods can be said constantly and given to others, so to hallow or hold God’s name as holy meant it had to be treated differently than this.
Pagans believed in gods that would not answer or even hear your prayer unless you said their name. Some also believed you had to say it more than once and included all their proper titles in fear that their god would not reply otherwise.
Thus Jesus said this was not the way for his followers by stating Matthew 6:7, 8:
In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This is how you are to pray
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name…
Did you notice, “do not babble like the pagans.” They believed their use of “many words,” employing the names and titles of their gods was the only way to get their prayers before the deities they worshiped.
According to the footnote on this verse in the New American Bible, the babbling of the pagans likely included “their reciting a long list of divine names, hoping that one of them will force a response from the deity.” Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that unless they use God’s name in prayer (which they often are careful to repeat more than once when they do so publicly), their prayer will not be heard.
But Jesus said that one did not need to do that, as if God would only respond at the sound of his Name. In fact, “your Father knows what you need before you ask him,” let alone limiting Himself to listening only to those who use and pronounce “Jehovah.”
In fact there is not one prayer of Jesus recorded in all of Scripture where Jesus prays to God using the name, “Jehovah.” If Jesus wanted us to do so wouldn’t he have done so himself since the Bible also says that what Christ did was “a model for you to follow his steps closely.”–1 Peter 2:21.
Yet most translations of the Bible have removed it and replaced it with a title. (Lord or God)
The most read Bible in the Catholic English-speaking world (outside of the United States) is the New Jerusalem Bible. It uses the Divine Name as “Yahweh” each and every time it appears in the original text. And most American Catholics own a copy of the NJB as well.
There are 327 million Catholics in Europe and the United States, most of which have read or own the Jerusalem Bible in their own language, each copy bearing the name “Yahweh.” Millions of Protestants own a copy as the NJB is considered to be one of the most accurate translations ever published. The readership of this BIble is estimated to be almost 1 billion.
In contrast from 1950 until February 2014 there have been 208 million copies of the New World Translation published, most of which (but not all) were owned and read only by Jehovah’s Witnesses between those years. With its 122 languages, its readership over the past 50 years has been estimated to have been only 19.2 million people–nothing close to the Catholic NJB.
Apart from JW’s I know of no religion that use it much. (Many religious people I ask think God’s name is Jesus.)
As you know, Logically–and I should sound like a broken record now–though a Catholic I am of Jewish ancestry. My people, the Jews may not pronounce the Name in worship ceremonies (liturgy), but
we do say it occasionally. We were the first to say the Name, the first to write the Name, and we produced the Book that made the Name famous. And us Jews have been doing this for thousands of years! I think we got your 100-year-old religion beat, don’t you think? After all we Jews wrote the Bible!
