Jehovah

[Jayhawker Soule]

From the Jewish Encyclopaedia:

The avoidance of the original name of God both in speech and, to a certain extent, in the Bible was due, according to Geiger ("Urschrift," p. 262), to a reverence which shrank from the utterance of the Sublime Name; and it may well be that such a reluctance first arose in a foreign, and hence in an "unclean" land, very possibly, therefore, in Babylonia. According to Dalman (l.c. pp. 66 et seq.), the Rabbis forbade the utterance of the Tetragrammaton, to guard against desecration of the Sacred Name; but such an ordinance could not have been effectual unless it had met with popular approval. The reasons assigned by Lagarde ("Psalterium Hicronymi," p. 155) and Halévy ("Recherches Bibliques," i. 65 et seq.) are untenable, and are refuted by Jacob (l.c. pp. 172, 174), who believes that the Divine Name was not pronounced lest it should be desecrated by the heathen.

 

[savagewind]

....and it was

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

....and it was

It's good to see that you're searching for something relevant to say. :yes:

 

[Pegg]

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."

think of it like this... the name of God was always written as an acronym because the original hebrew language did not use vowels. In the 9th century BCE, they introduced vowels but did not attach vowels to the tetragrammaton.

YHWH (the tetragrammaton) are the letters of the personal name of God just as BLDG are the letters which we know are the word for 'building' or ORG is the acronym for 'organization' and COM is the acronym for 'commercial'.

Now imagine if we all stopped pronouncing these words when we saw them written....in just a generation or two, our kids would not know how to pronounce these words. They would know what the meaning of the word was, but would have no idea what vowels they were originally written with.

Thats what happened to Gods personal name. They lost the pronunciation because they chose to replace the YHWH with 'adonai' instead of sounding out the name.

The name could be sounded out as Yahweh or Yehwoh or Yohwah or Yuhwah

But what doesnt change in the name are the 4 consonants. They will always be YHWH and represent Gods personal name, just as BLDG will always mean Building.

 

[Pegg]

Because the consonantal text was deemed sacrosanct.

thats that problem with attaching more honour to a written letter then to the Almighty God.

It led to Gods name being forgotten.... very sad.

 

[Pegg]

From the Jewish Encyclopaedia:

​

something doesnt add up

if it was forbidden to speak the name verbally, why was it ok to write it down on perishable materials?

the tetragrammaton appears over 7,000 times on paper. If it was forbidden to say, why was it ok to write it?

 

[Ingledsva]

From the Jewish Encyclopaedia:

"The avoidance of the original name of God both in speech and, to a certain extent, in the Bible was due, according to Geiger ("Urschrift," p. 262), to a reverence which shrank from the utterance of the Sublime Name; and it may well be that such a reluctance first arose in a foreign, and hence in an "unclean" land, very possibly, therefore, in Babylonia. According to Dalman (l.c. pp. 66 et seq.), the Rabbis forbade the utterance of the Tetragrammaton, to guard against desecration of the Sacred Name; but such an ordinance could not have been effectual unless it had met with popular approval. The reasons assigned by Lagarde ("Psalterium Hicronymi," p. 155) and Halévy ("Recherches Bibliques," i. 65 et seq.) are untenable, and are refuted by Jacob (l.c. pp. 172, 174), who believes that the Divine Name was not pronounced lest it should be desecrated by the heathen.

It could also be as simple as a ban on speaking aloud a name with magical powers.

We know from archaeological finds, and Tanakh, that they practiced magic.

And we read of the Prophets "calling on the name" of God.


*

 

[WonderWho]

It could also be as simple as a ban on speaking aloud a name with magical powers.

We know from archaeological finds, and Tanakh, that they practiced magic.

And we read of the Prophets "calling on the name" of God.


*

In my early Jewish education, I remember a midrash* that said the Name is so powerful that when Moses was going to pronounce it before the Hebrews, as soon as his throat went to pronounce the first syllable, the people couldn't handle it and freaked out. So he stopped.





midrash:an ancient commentary on part of the Hebrew scriptures, attached to the biblical text. The earliest Midrashim come from the 2nd century AD, although much of their content is older.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

thats that problem with attaching more honour to a written letter then to the Almighty God. It led to Gods name being forgotten.... very sad.

What's very sad is this inane antisemitic drivel.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Keep up. We've left your sorry polemic many posts back.

Sorry to say but I think she has a point, the organisation is set up in a way to make people afraid to leave.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

thats that problem with attaching more honour to a written letter then to the Almighty God.

It led to Gods name being forgotten.... very sad.

I thought the point was to honour God

 

[savagewind]

I thought the point was to honour God

Or..... is the point of pure worship the honoring of God or the honoring of God's Name? Is it both? If it is both and both are not the same it might be two gods to worship, not one. The Living God is one to worship and God's Name is another. One plus one is two. Isn't it?

 

[Pegg]

I thought the point was to honour God

how man seeks to honor someone may not be how God wants to be honoured.

Mankind do like their honorary titles...but Gods name is holy so why would we want to hide it? If something is holy you dont put it under the bed....you bring it out and give it the most prominent place where all can see it and praise it.

Imagine if you painted a beautiful painting and you signed your name on the bottom as artists do.... would it be alright for someone to come along and replace your personal name with something like "Great Artist" ?

We know how important personal names are to us.... is it really showing greater honor to someone if we remove their name and stop pronouncing it?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Hmm. I was of the belief that "Jehovah" is just a bad transliteration of the Tetragrammaton.

 

[Pegg]

Hmm. I was of the belief that "Jehovah" is just a bad transliteration of the Tetragrammaton.

no one knows what the original pronounciation was

Jehovah is not a bad transliteration at all... its just a pronounciation using the vowels e o a

its the JHVH which is important.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

how man seeks to honor someone may not be how God wants to be honoured.

Thank God that we have experts like you explaining His likes and dislikes while demeaning Judaism.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

no one knows what the original pronounciation was

Jehovah is not a bad transliteration at all... its just a pronounciation using the vowels e o a

its the JHVH which is important.

It's guesswork because it adds letters from Adonai. Yahweh or Yahveh are generally seen as the best transliterations of it.

 

[Pegg]

It's guesswork because it adds letters from Adonai. Yahweh or Yahveh are generally seen as the best transliterations of it.

it depends what language you speak

if you speak a language with no Y, its not a good transliteration. if you speak hebrew, yes its perfect.

English transliterates to a J which is why we have the name Jesus instead of Yesus

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

it depends what language you speak

if you speak a language with no Y, its not a good transliteration. if you speak hebrew, yes its perfect.

English transliterates to a J which is why we have the name Jesus and Yesus

Shouldn't you go with Yahweh then since you're trying to be accurate to the original name of the Hebrew god and not to the language you speak? Why doesn't the Watchtower just use the Tetragrammaton itself, then?

 

[Pegg]

Thank God that we have experts like you explaining His likes and dislikes while demeaning Judaism.

religious organizations are not more important then the one whom they are claiming to represent are they?

Is it more important to honor Judaism then God? Did God view the temple as more important then obedience to his commands?