Needing an answer to a Jehovah Witness Question

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My sister in law, who was raised in the Jehovah Witness faith, asked me a question that I truly have no answer for. I understand that the Jehovah Witnesses refer to God as “Jehovah” because that is “his name”. She asked me why we never call God by his name in our Mass celebration. Any thought and comments to help me give her a faithfilled answer to this one.

Thanks so much and God Bless you

Leslie
 
In my more "evangelical "days…I’d say the reason is similar to Evangelicals…we call Him “Father”.

We have a “familiar” relationship with God…YHVH was more of His Mystical name…the one that could not be pronounced…we have been taught by Jesus…“Our Father…” Paul said our spirits cry within us “Abba”…which basically means “Daddy”…“Papa”…a term of endearment to one’s Father.
 
leslie1201 said:
My sister in law, who was raised in the Jehovah Witness faith, asked me a question that I truly have no answer for. I understand that the Jehovah Witnesses refer to God as “Jehovah” because that is “his name”. She asked me why we never call God by his name in our Mass celebration. Any thought and comments to help me give her a faithfilled answer to this one.

Thanks so much and God Bless you

Leslie
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First of all, ask her why they call Him Jehovah,which is incorrect by the way, when the Jews never dared to even say His name? Hhmmmm? :whistle: What does Jesus call Him? Father. I cannot anywhere in the Scriptures where Jesus calls Him Jehovah.
 
leslie1201 said:
My sister in law, who was raised in the Jehovah Witness faith, asked me a question that I truly have no answer for. I understand that the Jehovah Witnesses refer to God as “Jehovah” because that is “his name”. She asked me why we never call God by his name in our Mass celebration. Any thought and comments to help me give her a faithfilled answer to this one.

Thanks so much and God Bless you

Leslie
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Actually that is not His name. Ask her to speak to a Jewish leader and ask that Jewish leader what God’s name is. He won’t answer Jehovah.

But to be more precise, the name that God gave in the Bible was YHWH, which would more accurately be pronounced Yahweh but nobody is sure anymore. The Hebrew alphabet had no vowels and of course they would never speak God’s name.

I remember reading once that the translation of God’s name was: I am who am… basically, He needs no name and He himself said as much. 🙂
 
leslie1201 said:
My sister in law, who was raised in the Jehovah Witness faith, asked me a question that I truly have no answer for. I understand that the Jehovah Witnesses refer to God as “Jehovah” because that is “his name”. She asked me why we never call God by his name in our Mass celebration. Any thought and comments to help me give her a faithfilled answer to this one.
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Because calling God by the name He gave to Moses would offend the Jews.

Now ask her who pierced Jehovah and when that occurred:
[BIBLEDRB]Revelation 1:7-8[/BIBLEDRB]
 
What is this hang-up with the name? A Jehovah Witness told me she converted to JW because she always wanted to know God’s name and the JW were able to tell her…Jehovah. That did it. She converted.
 
aicirt said:
What is this hang-up with the name? A Jehovah Witness told me she converted to JW because she always wanted to know God’s name and the JW were able to tell her…Jehovah. That did it. She converted.
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Thing is, Jehovah and YHWH are just as valid names for God as Jesus, Lord, and Holy Spirit. The confusion results from the JW rejection of the Trinity, which is why they can’t explain Rev. 1:7-8 among many other things.
 
Please read Exodus 3:5-14 to see what statement occasioned, for certain, the divine title YAHWEH (not Jehovah, by the way), misconstrued by many as the name of the Lord God. It is not so, however, because God can never be named. Among the ancient Semites, one who knew a name supposedly had power over the being so titled. Hence to know God’s name - as Moses requested - was tantamount to seeking power over God. The answer that God gave to Moses constitutes a refusal on God’s part to betray His name to man, consequently reaffirming His transcendent otherness.[cf. New American Bible Exodus 3:14]
Another way of putting it could be that God’s answer to Moses’ question about His name may be interpreted as “It is none of your business to know My name, much less to call Me by name because neither you nor any other human being has power over Me!!!”
Why, on the first place, they insist on calling God by name? Do they pretend to have any power over God? Why do they appear to push us to call God by name? Are they playing the tempter in pushing us to commit sin?
 
TimothyH said:
God has a name. His name is Jesus.

-Tim-
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You stole my answer. 🙂

And we say his name all the time at Mass.

[Form A] The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (cf. 2 Cor.13:13).

[Form B] The grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you (cf. 1 Pet. 1:3).

Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father (2 Jn. 3)

You alone are the most high, **Jesus Christ **(Lk. 1:32),

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father (Lk. 1:35),

etc etc etc
 
As mentioned by others, Jehovah is the another form of pronouncing יְהֹוָה (YHWH). Since the Jews are forbidden to pronounce it, whenever they read their scripture they use the word Adonai to read these letters.

For the simplicity of writing it in English, I will use the YHWH instead of the actual Hebrew. Because the word Adonai has vowels, the copiers of the scripture started to use vowel placement of Adonai in YHWH and write it as ÝHW’H.

The Church has always pronounce it Yahweh, however between the 11th-12th century monks who copied bible beginning to use another pronunciation which develop into Yehova.

For more info see catholic.com/quickquestions/is-gods-name-yahweh-or-jehovah

Hope this helps
 
I am right in the middle of a study on this because the majority of my family has converted to JW’s for this reason.

Kyrios (lord) shows up 748 times in the NT. Of this total, I have looked @ 100 entries to date. Of this, when refering to God the NWT (New World Translation) translates kyrios as God or Jehovah 100% of the time. When referring to Jesus the NWT translates the same word (kyrios) as lord. This is even more interesting when you look at it in context - see Rom 10:9-13 among others.

I have also looked at a comparisons of the words used for “worship”. It is all very scary as to how they can justify this as a bible and use it to trick people.

I have much more data on this subject but don’t want to bore anyone. I hsve been trying to determine how to sum it all up into a presentable format for others to use.

God Bless
 
My brain spins in disbelief that anyone would convert JUST because of a name. Publisher and others had it right…FATHER…ABBA…JESUS…👍

I am thinking that our dear Lord and Saviour will hear our prayers no matter What name we choose to use…I sometimes will say that I need to go and have a heart-to-heart with “THE BOSS”,😉

Jesus addressed God as FATHER and that is good enough for me:thumbsup:
 
The JWs use the wrong name for God

From the Preface to the Revised Standard Version (a Protestant translation) –

Quote:

The form “Jehovah” is of late medieval origin; it is a combination of the consonants of
the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it by the Masoretes but belonging to an
entirely different word.

…]

(1)…[T]he word “Jehovah” does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew; and (2) the use for any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other Gods from whom He had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.

End quote

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
Revised Standard Version
Oxford University Press
New York, 1973, 1977
 
Well the debate is we as Catholics or Christians have LOST Gods name, and this becomes equated to correct reverence in the minds of JW. Its just an outright terrible arguement IMHO. Sounds like JW-101 to me.

You do realize we don’t as Catholics consider their Baptism valid.

The oldest translation of Gods name is in the Bible, and was inscribed in the slave caves of Egypt, which date to the period of Exodus. And the name found of course isn’t Jehovah.

Seems to me if your going to place so much emphasis on a name, you should at least re-search the topic a bit.

Would you call your own human father by his first name? How often do you hear that?

Peace
 
JW’s use the original question in this thread “Why do you not call God by his real name” to get the interest of “non-believers” working in their favor. They will usually follow up with something like “It says all throughout the bible we are to call upon the name of YHWH” or “…and YHWH is my name” even in a context where a personal name could never mean anything. As you know this is in fact all through the bible. Then they will try to go as far back as possible to find the BEST translation of this YHWH (which is called the Tetragrammaton) to get to Yehovah (or Jehovah in English) see lectio.unibe.ch/05_2/troyer_names_of_god.htm.

The problems with this thought process begins with the literal translation. As Christians know “in the name of God” (or whatever name you may call God) means much more than a personal name. Moses had to ask God for his name. Until then, God was fine with “God”, “YHH”, “YA”, Elohim”… as long as it was He we worshiped. We take “ in the name of God, YHWY…” to mean “in the name of all goodness” or” in the name of all righteousness” and therefore when the NT comes along and now Jesus (God) is referred to as kyrios (lord) and we make the Trinitarian connection – hence where in the Hebrew (OT) writings you will see the translation of YHWH to Lord. This change to a JW is blaspheme sense they do not believe in the Trinity.
 
Thank you all so much for your (name removed by moderator)ut. She asked an innocent enough question and I told her that I did not have an answer but would find one for her. You all have been most helpful. I feel I must say that she is not a practicing JW, only seeking answers to questions that have been ingrained in her from her years as a Jehovah’s Witness. Her brother (my husband) was raised this way also and came home Easter of 2010 :). I am optimistic that her questions are leading her to learn more about the Catholic faith and mysteries as to why, as a Catholic, we are so devout. Thank you all again and may God Bess each and every one of us.

Leslie
 
Peace to you Leslie.

What everyone has spoken here about the revealed name of God in the Hebrew OT is 100% correct. The biggest thing in my mind that the JW’s have against Christendom is their belief that Christianity as a whole has followed tradition over what the Bible reveals. Of course as Catholics we somewhat agree with that statement. We do follow the Oral Traditions that Jesus commanded to be taught to the entire world after his death and resurrection. The inspired NT came at the very earliest, 20 years after this preaching work began, and it is a fulfillment of the Oral Word of God that was preached by the Apostles.

The Jehovah Witnesses hold to a Tradition that was not preached by any Apostle or their followers, and was not revealed in the inspired scriptures, and that is the name Jehovah. If you can find a copy of their 1969 Kingdom Interlinear of the Greek Scriptures, you will find “While inclining to view the pronunciation ‘Yah-weh’ as the more correct way, we have retained the form “Jehovah” because of peoples familiarity with it since the 14th century” (page 23.)

In essence, they know that most people (including the Jews) view Yahweh as the more correct way, they have chosen to keep the more “popular” way of rendering Tetragrammaton, because it became popular to use the name during the 1300’s. If you were to state this same type of analagy to them in your belief that Jesus died on a cross, and you believe he died on the cross because of what “people” said many years after he was crucified, they would immediately state that you are following tradition of men and not what the Bible states.
 
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