HaShem - Yahweh or Jehovah?

well it does say that abraham was from ur...

In Exodus 6:2-3, the translators who translated YHWH to Lord rather than Jehovah, misstranslated it on purpose. Adonai/Lord is a different Hebrew word. Yaweh/YHWH does not translate to adonai. Yaweh is a proper name, whereas adonai is descriptive of Jehovah's function. Jehovah is, i.e master/lord. Elohim is simply a description of what Jehovah is. He is a god. So one might correctly say, The adonai elohim, Jehovah, i.e. the lord god, Jehovah. Only one of these is the proper name/surname of the lord god, Jehovah.The old 1901 American Standard translation is one of the few which kept the two words translated literally. So in my Bible, It is correctly rendered, "Jehovah" in both verses 2 and 3. That's one reason I use the old American Standard. It is translated exact and lets the reader do the interpretation. Imo, translators should not interpret. Interpreting taints the opinionated product.Just because the late century BC Jews had the superstition about speaking and writing god's name most translators think they need to do so also, but imo, if God inpired the writers to write it in the first place it should be kept as written.This is why there's so much confusion about Allah and the Bible. It's not in there. The closest name to it is one of the chiefs of Edom mentioned in the first or second chapter of I Chronicles. My American Standard Bible renders this chief as, "Allah," but the KJ and some others put it close but not quite the same. I forgot, without looking it up.This message has been edited by buzsaw, 11-22-2004 09:35 PM

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

yes, i said that. see:

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it's silly to render this text "by My name LORD" because it doesn't say his name is it says .

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but almost everywhere else is rendered as if it were , because this is what is spoken and read in place of hashem, the divine name. turn to any random pasasge of the bible. if it says "LORD" in all caps or small caps, the word it's translating is NOT adonay, but yahweh. "jehovah" is an english reading of a germanic transliteration of of YHWH with the vowels belonging to ADNY. "yahweh" is the best reading of the proper name. yes, eloyhim is an informal word meaning "gods." the plurality has been much debated, but i don't think it's an issue. it's used both as singular word and a plural word, according to context (like scissors, or pants in english). it's used to refer to yhwh, idols, foriegn gods, and sometimes even people.however, there are whole sections of the bible where this is the ONLY way god is refered to, much like we call god "god" and not "yahweh." actually, when your english bible says "the LORD God" it says "yhwh eloyhim" in hebrew, not "adonay eloyhim." agreed with the first part, but not the last. "jehovah" is an incorrect rendering of the name. but "Y_aH_oW_aH" was never meant to be read literally, it was a form of notation to remind the reader to say "adonay" instead of "yahweh." transliterating it is an error. yes, i might even agree with that. however, the addition of the vowels of "adonay" to "yhwh" is something that has been done as a product of that superstition. it is not in the original text. if we want to remove the superstition about reading the name of god, we have to remove the vowel points along with it, and look at the actual word.

actually, i can't recall for the life of me why the current vowels in "yahweh" were chosen. my teacher explained it to me once, and i should have taken notes.i recall that it had something to do with standard name prefixes, and a play on the word "to be." you just had to pick the right tense.i was hoping you could explain that here, to further demonstrate why "yahweh" is a better choice than "jehovah," if it's not neccessarily the original pronounciation.

the bible is confusing in this matter. the last verse in genesis four does say that that was the point at which people began to use the name of the lord. the bible contains the name well before this, however, as early as chapter two, in conjunction with eloyhim.it's not really a problem if you give it some thought: genesis was written AFTER the events in took place, not during. if i wanted to be an apologist, i'd say that at some point people forgot the name of the lord, since god doesn't use it with the major patriarchs. he uses varitions of elowah.the evidence is also pretty good that moses did not write genesis, at least not in its entirety. but that's another thread. you must not have read very far into the bible. there are LOTS of instances in which god is JUST called god. genesis 1 for instance. this suggests that these portions of text were written later when the god in question did not have to be identified: everyone KNEW which god they were talking about. just as we do today. it also had to be written after the custom of not using the name of the lord came about.earlier texts (like genesis 2) identify god by title (eloyhim) and specific name (yahweh). this suggests that they were aware of other (foriegn?) gods, but that the focus was on one particular local god. agreed. actually, they were doing this in 300 bc as well. why do you think christ refers to god as "father" and says "your name" instead of just using it? the custom of avoidance of speaking hashem was already in place during his lifetime. notice the pronounciation. we say "hall-eh-loo-yah" or some variant, not "hall-eh-loo-ja" with hard j sound as in "just."

Jehovah is the most correct modern translated meaning of the proper name. That's why when it is used it is translated that way. To try to say we should read the name in the Hebrew without translating it to English makes no sense. Why? Because by the same token if you insist on reading it in the Hebrew, to be consistent then you should insist that there should be no English translation of any of the Bible, but that every word of it should be read in the Hebrew language.

no, just think it's important to try to get the name of the deity you worship right. what if i called god "memra" as one of the targums does? is that ok too?in many cases it's just an issue of pronounciation. "jacob" is just an anglicized pronounciation of "ya'aqob." it's still essentially the same name. it was apparent how far pronounciation can go when my teacher said the name "zechariah." now, you and i would read it "zack-ah-rye-ah" but he said it "ze(c)h-har-yah-ah" with that gutteral "ch" that we don't even have in the english language. it sounded completely different, but it was just how you said it.jehovah is a fundamentally different name than yahweh. jehovah is neither the most correct, most modern, or most common translation of the name. from post 1: This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 11-22-2004 11:13 PM

Dear Arachnophilia;

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(Moses already knew Jehovah's name, Genesis 4:26)the bible is confusing in this matter. the last verse in genesis four does say that that was the point at which people began to use the name of the lord. the bible contains the name well before this, however, as early as chapter two, in conjunction with eloyhim.
it's not really a problem if you give it some thought: genesis was written AFTER the events in took place, not during. if i wanted to be an apologist, i'd say that at some point people forgot the name of the lord, since god doesn't use it with the major patriarchs. he uses varitions of elowah.

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I used Genesis 4:26 because of the refence to the "name" of God, as indicated by the earlier use of Jehovah in Genesis God's name was known and used before Genesis 4:26. What Genesis 4:26 is referring to, is that people began to use God's name in false religion, since calling on Jehovah by true worshippers like Able and Enoch is recorded as having happened earlier."at some point people forgot the name of the lord, since god doesn't use it with the major patriarchs. he uses varitions of elowah."? You are thinking of course of Exodus 6:3 "And I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but as respects my name Jehovah I did not make myself known to them." But if you check in the Bible we find that the patriarchs knew and used Jehovah's name.
(Genesis 12:8) "Then he built an altar there to Jehovah and began to call on the name of Jehovah."
(Genesis 22:14) "And Abraham began to call the name of that place Jehovah-jireh. This is why it is customarily said today: "In the mountain of Jehovah it will be provided."
(Genesis 26:25) "Accordingly he built an altar there and called on the name of Jehovah and pitched his tent there, and the servants of Isaac went excavating a well there.
(Genesis 28:16) . . .Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said: "Truly Jehovah is in this place . . .(Genesis 29:35) . . .: "This time I shall laud Jehovah." She therefore called his name Judah. . . .
(Genesis 30:24) . . .So she called his name Joseph, saying: "Jehovah is adding another son to me."Notice the specific references to calling on the Name of Jehovah, and the naming of people and places using the Divine Name. The patriarchs knew Jehovah's name, they used it in scripture, what Exodus 6:3 is referring to, is that Jehovah had not made his name manifest to them through the use of divine power on the scale like he was going to do for the Israelites in bondage in Egypt. So what Jehovah was saying was that the patriarchs hadn't seen the vast power behind Jehovah's name.

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you must not have read very far into the bible. there are LOTS of instances in which god is JUST called god.

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Of course, the Bible is the Word of God, it is not necessary to identify God by name all the time. But the fact that the Bible does so frequently, shows the important of using God's name. But outside that context in the real world, identification of God is very necessary for there are many 'gods' and 'lords'. If you don't use God's name, for all you know you might as well be praying to a pink unicorn. (somebody on the board's imaginary god, doesn't answer any prayers he says, so you really want to use a name.) In fact we are commanded to use God's name. Hebrews 13:15 "let us always offer to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips which make public declaration to his name."

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actually, they were doing this in 300 bc as well. why do you think christ refers to god as "father" and says "your name" instead of just using it? the custom of avoidance of speaking hashem was already in place during his lifetime.

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Jesus frequently made us of the Divine Name, when he said "it is written" he was quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Greek Septuagint in use in his day contained the Divine Name. Some Bible translations for this reason use the Divine Name in those texts. Matthew 4:7 "Jesus said to him: "Again it is written, 'You must not put Jehovah your God to the test.'" NWT Jesus commanded his followers; "'Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, " Matthew 28:19 so he and his true followers did and do make use of the Divine Name.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

uh, no. the name of the lord is not recorded as being uttered by anyone in the text until genesis 4:26. in fact, i bet you won't find "LORD" surrounded by a quotation made by a man anywhere in the book of genesis at all, but i'd have to check that one. it would, however, be consistent with the idealogy of the time period in which it was compiled: speaking the name of the lord was bad. 4:26 is the only verse that MENTIONS that people used to use the name of the lord. and it doesn't say falsely, it says they "began to invoke the lord by name" or "called on the name of the lord."yes, the name itself is recorded before that. like i said, it's not suprise, the book was written after those events took place. if i had to venture a guess, i'd say a good section of it was written well after moses as well.but genesis is horribly inconsistent in these matters. reading it in order, in clear english blew me away. look at this:

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Genesis 6:3

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The LORD said, "My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh; let the days allowed him be one hundred and twenty years."

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now, god says this before noah, before babel. yet,

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Genesis 9:29

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And all the days of Noah came to 950 years; then he died.

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what? further inconsistancies can be seen in chapter 11, in just about every descendant of noah. kind of odd, don't you think? what's the best explanation for this? genesis wasn't written all at once. in fact, i see four distinct styles in the book of genesis alone, suggest four different authors. the latest date i can find in the text is 600 bc, when camels were domesticated, the chaldeans ruled ur, and the hebrews were exposed to a lot of babylonian mythology which appears in the text.so i'm not afwully suprised if it DOES contain an inconsistancy abotu the usage of the name, such as the bit about el, and exodus which is an entirely separate book. like i aid, IF i was an apologist, i would make the statement that people forgot the name. i am not an apologist. want me to post 17 examples in the book of genesis where they call god by "el" and not "yhwh" ? some bits use it almost exclusively. like i said, different authors. that's one of those meaningless phrases you learn in church. what does that mean? make his name manifest. the either knew the name or they didn't. and no, they certainly never would have, considering you can't pronounce that name in hebrew. if the bible was the word of god, wouldn't he have written his name as "me" occasionally? and this is exactly why the bible does use his name -- in places. certain portions show evidence that they were written AFTER it was customary to avoid the name of the lord.i'll spare you the actual quotes, but compare psalms 53 and 14. they're the same psalm. the books of psalms (there's five) overlap a little, and overlap with other books too. this is one indication of an overlap in the book itself. so it's useful for examining the differences in thought patterns in different circles at different times.psalm 14 uses the name of the lord, but psalm 53 uses eloyhim in place of it in every instance (unless you have a masoretic text, but i think they've inserted it there to make it match 14). my bible doesn't say that.

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Matthew 4:7

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efh autw o ihsouV, palin gegraptai, ouk ekpeiraseiV kurion ton qeon sou.

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we recognizing this word in greek yet? it's kurios, or lord. not "jehovah" but "lord" lowercase. as in "adonai" in hebrew. if jesus spoke hebrew, we would have said "adonai eloyhim" not "yahweh eloyhim" in this verse. but since jesus did not speak hebrew (he spoke aramaic), i don't know what he said. however, i doubt it would have been the name of god. it was recorded as using the title for god. had i been baptized, they would have said to me:"i baptize you in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost." this is like columbus landing on hispanola and saying "i claim this land in the name of the king of spain!" that's nice. it's making use of the power of the name sure -- without USING the name.

Dear Arachnophilia;

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uh, no. the name of the lord is not recorded as being uttered by anyone in the text until genesis 4:26. in fact, i bet you won't find "LORD" surrounded by a quotation made by a man anywhere in the book of genesis at all,

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Genesis 4:1 "In time she gave birth to Cain and said: "I have produced a man with the aid of Jehovah."" If you want to split hairs, the quotation was made by a woman rather than a man, so on very technical grounds in this case you could be correct. LOL!
(Genesis 5:29) . . .And he proceeded to call his name Noah, saying: "This one will bring us comfort from our work and from the pain of our hands resulting from the ground which Jehovah has cursed."
(Genesis 9:26) . . ."Blessed be Jehovah, Shem's God,. . .
(Genesis 10:9) . . .: "Just like Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah."
(Genesis 14:22) . . .At this Abram said to the king of Sodom: "I do lift up my hand [in an oath] to Jehovah the Most High God, Producer of heaven and earth,

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but genesis is horribly inconsistent in these matters. reading it in order, in clear english blew me away. look at this: Genesis 6:3 "The LORD said, "My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh; let the days allowed him be one hundred and twenty years."
now, god says this before noah, before babel. yet,
Genesis 9:29 "And all the days of Noah came to 950 years; then he died"

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The 120 years allowed for man was the 120 years till the flood, it was not a statement of maximum allowable life span.

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what does that mean? make his name manifest.

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Jesus stated at John 17:6 "I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world." now his disciples already knew Jehovah's name, what they learned was how Jehovah was working out his will through his son Jesus Christ and they had seen the powerful works Jesus had done in his Father's name. (1 Samuel 3:7-8) . . .As regards Samuel, he had not yet come to know Jehovah, and the word of Jehovah had not yet begun to be revealed to him.) 8 . . .

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and this is exactly why the bible does use his name -- in places. certain portions show evidence that they were written AFTER it was customary to avoid the name of the lord.
i'll spare you the actual quotes, but compare psalms 53 and 14. they're the same psalm. the books of psalms (there's five) overlap a little, and overlap with other books too. this is one indication of an overlap in the book itself. so it's useful for examining the differences in thought patterns in different circles at different times.
psalm 14 uses the name of the lord, but psalm 53 uses eloyhim in place of it in every instance (unless you have a masoretic text, but i think they've inserted it there to make it match 14).

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The Divine Name originally occurred in those verses such as Psalm 53, but was later removed by later Jewish copyists. YHWH occurs in earlier manuscripts, which is why better Bible translations have God's name in those verses today as it was there when it was written. Psalm 53:1 "The senseless one has said in his heart: "There is no Jehovah.""The Jewish custom of avoiding saying God's name occurred later after the OT was written and is still an on going thing with Orthodox Jews. The Bible writers made free use of God's name, even if later copyists and Bible translators sometimes removed it.

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my bible doesn't say that. Matthew 4:7 "efh autw o ihsouV, palin gegraptai, ouk ekpeiraseiV kurion ton qeon sou." we recognizing this word in greek yet? it's kurios, or lord. not "jehovah" but "lord" lowercase. as in "adonai" in hebrew. if jesus spoke hebrew, we would have said "adonai eloyhim" not "yahweh eloyhim" in this verse. but since jesus did not speak hebrew (he spoke aramaic), i don't know what he said. however, i doubt it would have been the name of god. it was recorded as using the title for god.

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Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16 "YOU must not put Jehovah YOUR God to the test," and the Greek Septuagint in use in his day contained God's Name in the form of the Tetragrammaton. Being the one who made God's name manifest, he certainly would not have shied away from using it. It was in the second and third centuries that the Divine name was removed from both the OT and the NT. Which is why better Bible translations restore God's name when ever NT writers made a direct quote from a OT verse where the name was used. That is why the Bible translation I quoted from, the NWT, uses Jehovah at Matthew 4:7.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Drop the J's and the v's which were both additions to the English language and here's how these two names look.1. JACOB = YACOB = YA'ACOB = YCB
2. JEHOVAH = YAHOAH = YAHWEH = YHWHHow is #1 fundamentally more different than #2? The only fundamental difference I see is that one has only two cylables and no v's, these two consonents being later additions to the English language. Early English texts would have no J's or V's in either of these names, but good translators translate into the language of the people. Thus, "Jehovah" and "Jacob." Nearly all translators, educated and authoritative professionals in linguistics, would support my argument since that's how they translated the various versions.

Where is your documentation that the divine/proper name of God, "Jehovah/Yehoah" was removed in the early NT translations?

I'm not a Bible scholar so can someone please explain this one to me?
Is there evidence that "the Greek Septuagint in use in his day contained God's Name in the form of the Tetragrammaton"? Otherwise, this amendment goes well beyond translation!

it's not an issue of dropping anything, it's an issue of using innappropriate vowels.jacob is yah-ahk-obe. it's not that different. we've lost a syllable, and pronounce the vowels a little differently. but jehovah os yah-weh. here we're adding a syllable, and completrely changing the word by using the incorrect vowels. uh, no. most translators today would NOT support your argument. it's simply not translated that way any more. it's well know to anyone even the slightest bit versed in hebrew that the name "YHWH" is rendered with the vowels of adonai, so the reader says "adonai" and not "yahweh." no person the slightest bit educated in hebrew would EVER read this as the combination of the two words.let's look at how a group of educated hebrew linguists and rabbis translated these names in 200 bc.

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Exodus 6.3:

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kai wfqhn pros abraam kai isaak kai iakwb qeos wn autwn kai to onoma mou kurios ouk edhlwsa autois.

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the second one should be starting to look familiar. it's kurios, or "lord." in hebrew, "adonai." why would educated hebrew linguists and rabbis render "YaHoWaH" as "kurios" in greek, instead of "iahowah" or even "iaweh?" because you weren't meant to read the consonants, JUST the vowels, and remember to say "adonai" or "kurios" in greek.for demonstration purposes, the first bolded bit is "jacob"

i guess i stand corrected on this one. i only made a breif overview of genesis looking for it in quotes. however, it's still inconsistent with 4:26, and exodus 6:3. sounds nice. but it still doesn't make any sense.moses fathers his three children at age 500, and the flood comes when he's 600. that's 100 years difference. god tells moses he's going to flood the earth at some point after noah has his kids. so noah had at most 100 years to build the ark, not 120 as the beginning of chapter 6 suggests with your reading.did god wait to tell moses? you, quote in context.samuel has very little to do with jesus. and no, the disciples of jesus would NOT have known the name jehovah, they would have known some variant on "yahweh" and probably known not to SAY it, but say "adonai" instead. no, psalm 53 does not say that. it doesn't even say "LORD" or "YHWH." it says god: ELOYHIM. was it removed by an editor? YES. that was the point i was trying to make clear. no, think about this one again.if i were in charge of editing the bible as it stands today in order to remove the name of the lord, i would have been fired. whoever did that missed 6519 instances. that's a LOT!what i just provided you with is evidence that the custome began while the bible was still being compiled. the person who transcribed psalm 53 avoided the name, but the person who transcribed 14 did not. these two were written down by SEPARATE INDIVIDUALS.no one person sat down and wrote or editted the bible. different people had different customs. but the person who wrote genesis 1 did not use the name of the lord, and person who wrote genesis 2 did. some places show obvious signs that the authors and/or redactors avoided the name.and the earliest text we have of the old testament doesn't use the name of the lord AT ALL. in every instance, the septuagint uses the word "kurios" in place of the name. that means that in 200 bc, the custom was already in place.

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Deuteronomy 6.16:

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Do not try the LORD your God, as you did at Massah.

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Deuteronomy 6.16:

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ouk ekpeiraseis kurion ton qeon sou on tropon exepeirasasqe en tw peirasmw

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no, sorry, it does not. please do show me where the septuagint contains the name of the lord though, because i have yet to find one example of it. a philosophical point, and i don't know. maybe he did, maybe he didn't. he was a bit of a radical reformist, against the conventions and just following the letter of the law, so i imagine he would have called the lord by name. but he would not have said "jehovah." nor "yahweh" for that matter, as he spoke aramaic and the pronounciation was probably different. this statement is erronious on multiple levels.a. "YHWH" or any variant thereof does not appear in the septuagint to my knowledge. this is the oldest biblical text we have, dating to 200 BC, prior to the writing of the nt.
b. "יהוה" currently appears in every masoretic hebrew text (both modern and archaic) used in synagogues several thousand times (6519 between the torah, nevi'im, and ketuvim). my english version of the masoretic texts even contains it once in hebrew, in exodus 6:3.
c. the new testament was mostly WRITTEN during the second and third centuries ad. your bible is trying to insert the name of your religion into the text, when it is not there."better" translations render the name as one of the two words it is a combination of -- but not both. and as i pointed out, matthew 4:7 does not contain the name of the lord in greek. i would actually be interested to see how it's rendered in greek, if someone can find me a text where it has been.