YHWH

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Benedikt

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I heard somewhere that saying YHWH is a mortal sin. I was listening to a catholics groups song praising YHWH. Is it true that saying YHWH is a mortal sin?

Thanks! 🤷
 
No, it is not a sin. We don’t use it in our liturgy anymore out of respect to the Jewish tradition. But it is perfectly fine in other settings. Even at Mass, it would be illicit but not grave matter.
 
Well, in the first place, we don’t know the correct pronunciation. Hebrew didn’t have vowels. The Masoretic text of the OT added marks to the Hebrew text to help people pronounce it, but supposedly even then, the exact pronunciation was still not known.

The first words of Eve in Genesis include the reference to God as YHWH. So, even though the tradition later was not to use the word, Genesis was sanitized to remove this most holy name from her ordinary speech.

That, in turn, may indicate the high level of her immaculate conception (creation) because she was privileged to use this holy name.

Even though we don’t use YHWH directly, we use it all the time.

“Jesus” (greek) comes from Y’eshua (Hebrew) and it means YHWH saves.
 
Well, in the first place, we don’t know the correct pronunciation. Hebrew didn’t have vowels. The Masoretic text of the OT added marks to the Hebrew text to help people pronounce it, but supposedly even then, the exact pronunciation was still not known.
The vowel makings in the Masoretic text are the ones for Adonai (ie Lord) as a reminder to the reader to say Lord. So we don’t know what the vowels are.
 
Well, in the first place, we don’t know the correct pronunciation. Hebrew didn’t have vowels. The Masoretic text of the OT added marks to the Hebrew text to help people pronounce it, but supposedly even then, the exact pronunciation was still not known.

The first words of Eve in Genesis include the reference to God as YHWH. So, even though the tradition later was not to use the word, Genesis was sanitized to remove this most holy name from her ordinary speech.

That, in turn, may indicate the high level of her immaculate conception (creation) because she was privileged to use this holy name.

Even though we don’t use YHWH directly, we use it all the time.

“Jesus” (greek) comes from Y’eshua (Hebrew) and it means YHWH saves.
“Alleluia” or “Halleluia” – Hallel YH – Praise YHWH
 
While it became fashionable, for some bizarre reason, in the post-conciliar liturgical free-for-all, the Church (Western, Eastern or Oriental) traditionally has never really used the Tetragrammaton liturgically, nor was it included in traditional biblical texts. It was invariably replaced with a translation of “Adonai” (“Lord”) or “Elohim” (“God”). That the Church has finally seen fit to revert to suppressing the innovation, at least in liturgical use, is more due to an attempt to restore our own traditional custom than to anything else.

Even in modern Israeli Hebrew, reference to the Tetragrammaton is avoided. For example, when using the traditional Semitic rendering of numerals (letters and combinations of letters), “15” is rendered “tet-vav” (9+6) and not “yodh-he” (10+5) out of deference. (This is not true in other Semitic languages, since the Tetragrammaton has no particular significance there. (In Syriac, e.g, “15” is rendered “yodh-he”.) At the same time, though, as noted above, the Tetragrammaton has never been traditionally used in OT versions in those languages, since the OT texts themselves derive mainly from the Hebrew.)
 
No, it is not a sin. We don’t use it in our liturgy anymore out of respect to the Jewish tradition. But it is perfectly fine in other settings. Even at Mass, it would be illicit but not grave matter.
The fact that it is illicit in the case of hymns at mass means that, given knowledge of that rule, it would indeed be a sin in that case.
 
If this is a sin, then we would be in danger of damnation every time we read from the Jerusalem (catholic) Bible which uses the name Yahweh through out.🙂
 
Well, in the first place, we don’t know the correct pronunciation. Hebrew didn’t have vowels. The Masoretic text of the OT added marks to the Hebrew text to help people pronounce it, but supposedly even then, the exact pronunciation was still not known.

The first words of Eve in Genesis include the reference to God as YHWH. So, even though the tradition later was not to use the word, Genesis was NOT sanitized to remove this most holy name from her ordinary speech.

That, in turn, may indicate the high level of her immaculate conception (creation) because she was privileged to use this holy name.

Even though we don’t use YHWH directly, we use it all the time.

“Jesus” (greek) comes from Y’eshua (Hebrew) and it means YHWH saves.
I’m correcting my previous post to insert the intended word “NOT”. Genesis was not “sanitized” to remove this holy word.
 
The fact that it is illicit in the case of hymns at mass means that, given knowledge of that rule, it would indeed be a sin in that case.
When you say sin I assume you mean mortal sin?

Knowing this rule exists is not enough. You would have to know in the first place if breaking the rule was a sin of grave matter or not. Does any Church document specify this?
 
When you say sin I assume you mean mortal sin?

Knowing this rule exists is not enough. You would have to know in the first place if breaking the rule was a sin of grave matter or not. Does any Church document specify this?
To be a mortal sin, it must be, in addition to the criteria you state, grave matter. Singing along with a hymn that contains the word Yahweh is not grave matter. Now if you were a music director and pick lots of Yahweh hymns out of spiteful disobedience to the liturgical norms, that might be more grave.
 
Which is why I dislike the Jerusalem Bible.
That makes no sense. There is nothing wrong with the use of the word Yahweh outside of liturgy. So there is nothing wrong with a translation of Scripture that uses the word Yahweh as long as that translation isn’t used for the Lectionary.
 
To be a mortal sin, it must be, in addition to the criteria you state, grave matter. Singing along with a hymn that contains the word Yahweh is not grave matter. Now if you were a music director and pick lots of Yahweh hymns out of spiteful disobedience to the liturgical norms, that might be more grave.
Re-read my post. I said grave matter!
 
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