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Jehovah

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
So Jehovah was invented to replace adonai? :/

(Don't judge)
No. :) Adonai, meaning 'My Lord' is an honor title which is read instead of Yahweh/Yehovah. Technically it's not even a matter of different pronunciation but simply using a different word (a title) entirely instead of reading the word (name) which is written in the calligraphy. Think of it in English terms. The general idea, is for you to have the word Yahweh written in your Bible, but you read it (based on cultural factors, honor titles, tradition, and linguistic rules) 'My Lord' instead (and in some cases also another term, depending on context). It is more complicated than that when trying to explain the linguistic concept behind it, but this is a basic start.

it is a title of honor, but its fairly common as a title...even people are called Adonai in the scriptures.
How common according to the statistics you have on the use of the word as title or name? And why would it render the term useless? Wouldn't it make the use of a recognized honor title meaningful to begin with? If I'm not mistaken the word Lord is probably more common in the English (and other) speaking world when addressing God in the Christian religion.

Sarah called her husband Abraham Adonai, the kings of Israel were addressed in the same manner. But the real question is, if the name shouldnt be pronounced, why did every bible writer think it was ok to use the name in their writings? It would seem the bible writers had a different idea because otherwise they wouldnt have written the name at all....why not just write the word 'adonai' in the first place?
Is this based on scholarly consensus, or is a personal opinion? I'd like to understand if we are going to discuss this objectively. A simple explanation for your question is because the Bible is sacred text and because writing 'Adonai' each time Yahweh appears would be out of context half the time, as Jay already explained, Adonai is only one alternative depending on the linguistic rules of Qere and Ketiv, another title based on these rules can be Elohim. A skilled Hebrew reader knows when to use each title.
 
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Wherenextcolumbus

Well-Known Member
Ok I kind of get it now
So Jehovah is extremely inaccurate?

"The consensus of mainstream scholarship[citation needed] is that "Yehowah" (or in Latin transcription "Jehovah") is a pseudo-Hebrew form which was mistakenly created when Medieval and/or Renaissance Christian scholars misunderstood this common qere perpetuum; the usual Jewish practice at the time of the Masoretes was to pronounce it as "Adonai," as is still the Jewish custom today.[3] Pronouncing it as "Jehovah," "Yehowah" or similar would be a mistake of exactly the same type as reading hiw for the qere perpetuum of the third-person singular feminine pronoun."
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
..., if the name shouldnt be pronounced, why did every bible writer think it was ok to use the name in their writings?
That makes about as much sense as: "If pizza is so good why only go to the movies on the weekend?"

It would seem the bible writers had a different idea because otherwise they wouldnt have written the name at all ...
That statement makes zero sense.

...why not just write the word 'adonai' in the first place?
Because the consonantal text was deemed sacrosanct.
 

psychoslice

Veteran Member
Its just a name, what is beyond the mind call it god or whatever can never be named or conceptualized, this is all that is meant by not nameing god. As usual we get all caught up in literalism, we then sneek around the name and slighly use words such as g-d.
 

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
Ok I kind of get it now
So Jehovah is extremely inaccurate?

"The consensus of mainstream scholarship[citation needed] is that "Yehowah" (or in Latin transcription "Jehovah") is a pseudo-Hebrew form which was mistakenly created when Medieval and/or Renaissance Christian scholars misunderstood this common qere perpetuum; the usual Jewish practice at the time of the Masoretes was to pronounce it as "Adonai," as is still the Jewish custom today.[3] Pronouncing it as "Jehovah," "Yehowah" or similar would be a mistake of exactly the same type as reading hiw for the qere perpetuum of the third-person singular feminine pronoun."
OK... I was typing a detailed answer about the actual Qere and Ketiv technical rules. But I have to be honest it is difficult to understand for a reader who doesn't read or speak Hebrew, simply because the vowel signs used in this system do not exist in English. They are a distinct Hebrew orthography with no parallel in any of the languages other members on this forum use. And perhaps this is one of the sources of misunderstanding in this thread.
So to try and make is more simple, the best way to understand it is to realize that the Hebrew calligraphy uses Hebrew vowel signs (like Arabic uses for example - only the Arabic sings look differently) that direct the reader which word/title to use instead of literally reading the Tetragrammaton like a parrot. In our case, the Tetragrammaton or Y-H-V-H will have specific vowel signs built into the four letters to indicate the reader which title he should use. I understand this is still not fully clear, but that is one part of the concept. The reason why this all seems hard to understand is because it takes a full background in Hebrew and then some to get to the bottom of this. One needs matured and more advanced Hebrew skills to simply flow with the concept.
 
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