by Yizuman 105 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Well, it seems to me the IF the writers and law makers of the OT and Old covenant had gotten it right, there would have been no need for Jesus to come into the picture.
Of course if you don't believe in Jesus and his Lordship, then it is a moot point.
For a nice eye opener on a messiah figure read the Dead Sea Scroll 11Q13
For a nice eye opener on a messiah figure read the Dead Sea Scroll 11Q13
The whole The Coming of Melchizedek thing?
Yes, interesting isn't it.
Blends well with Hebrews.
Spelling the Tetragrammaton: V or W?
What are the four letters that make up the Tetragrammaton or Sacred Name—YHVH or YHWH?
"Here’s the answer from Hebrew scholars, linguists, lexicographers, and historians. OUR HEAVENLY FATHER REVEALED Himself to us in the Hebrew Scriptures. But what exactly is His Name? The more knowledgeable say that in English is should be to Yahweh, some claim Yahvah, and others Yahveh. Bear in mind that the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew, using the Hebrew alphabet. It is through this ancient language, then, that we find the true Name of the Creator. We have the advantage of the preservation of the Old Testament in the Hebrew. The Hebrew copies of the Scriptures were meticulously made through the years; the scribes carefully counting each letter and word to ensure accuracy. The Almighty revealed to us His personal, memorial Name in Exodus 3:15, which is preserved in the Hebrew as h w h y (read from right to left). Known as the Tetragrammaton, meaning “four letters,” His Name is represented by our English YHWH, or as some believe, YHVH.
Names Remained Unchanged
Whenever mankind was spoken to from the heavens, it was to those who understood Hebrew. Conversations between humans and celestial beings recorded for us in the New Testament were to those who spoke Hebrew, such as the annunciation to Miriam, or to Paul on the Damascus road. There is reason to believe that Hebrew was spoken by Adam and Eve and is the heavenly language, which survived the confusion of tongues at Babel. In order for English-speaking peoples to pronounce correctly the Heavenly Father’s name, it is necessary to bring the phonetic sounds from the Hebrew language into the English. Bringing the exact sounds across to another language is known as “transliteration.” Names are transliterated, not translated. Translation means to bring across the meaning of the word or phrase.
Proper nouns of persons and places are seldom translated, but are transliterated and sound the same the world over. One can listen to a foreign newscast and note the names like “Bush,” “Saddam,” “Yeltsin,” “Kohl,” “Moscow,” “Washington,” and “London” are easily discernible. Proper nouns simply do not change from language to language, but remain the same, allowing for ethnic accents. Our Bible has many names transliterated from the Hebrew, such as Adam, Reuben, Ruth, Esther, and Daniel. Yet the most important Name of all—Yahweh—was purposely, wrongfully changed!
Equivalent Letter Necessary
If a foreign language uses an alphabet of Latin letters like English, French, Spanish, or German; the transliteration is much easier. If, however, the language uses another alphabet such as found in Russian, Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese or Hebrew, then we must employ letters from our English alphabet to express the same sound. Therefore, to go from Hebrew to English it is necessary to seek the equivalent letter that best expresses or approximates a given sound. Linguists have already done that for us, and we can readily ascertain from many available charts the correct Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton and then “transliterate” these into English.
Bible scholars agree that the personal Name of the Mighty One of Israel is best-expressed in Hebrew today as ” hwhy “. The letters are written and read from right to left as they are in most Semitic languages. The Tetragrammaton is most often represented in English as YHWH. The question before us is, what is the exact English equivalent of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (yothe, he, waw, he), hwhy?.........................."
http://www.remnantofyhwh.com/Spelling%20the%20Tetragrammaton.htm
Proper nouns of persons and places are seldom translated, but are transliterated and sound the same the world over.
So Gee-zuss (English) sounds the same as Hay-soos (Spanish), both quite different from the original Aramaic, which is more like Yeshwa`?
Does Zerk-seez (English) sound just like Akhash-Verosh (Hebrew), both quite different from the original Persian, which is more like Khsha-Yarsha?
Transliteration is often quite inexact; just compare the names of Egyptian pharaohs in Greek translation with the Egyptian originals (e.g. Cheops vs. Khufu). Why do we tend to say Nebuchadnezzar when Nebuchadrezzar is more accurate? Names could also be deformed intentionally in transliteration. Some biblical examples include Abednego in place of Abednebo and Awil-Marduk instead of Amel-Marduk.
Translation of names are also very common. I can think of Pearl Harbor and Pearl Ridge (= Pali Momi) in Hawaii. I can think of translations of Harry Potter books in other languages where the meanings of the names are often preserved. And sometimes transliteration can involve elements of translation or folk etymology, such as the Greek spelling of "Jerusalem" as Hierosoluma (with hiero- from hieros "holy, sacred").
I'm not saying anything about this thread but... wouldn't it be funny if, on the other side of the world, a bunch of Muslim's were burning their time and getting all riled up, arguing over the name Allah?
Interestingly, if I misspell, mispronounce, or flat-out use the wrong name (like "Rodney" for example), the Flying SpaGHeTTi Monster doesn't get petulant.
*yawn* Now that that's solved, I'm gonna go have a beer and play some games with my kids. Best of luck to you folks!
The sad fact of the matter is that most people just don't think it matters. Nothing matters but what they think and if the truth interfers with what they think, then they'll just turn the whole thing into some kind of debating society exercise and leave thinking to other people.
Jeremiah 8:8
" 'How can you say, "We are wise,
for we have the law of the LORD,"
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
has handled it falsely?
"How difficult would it be the learn the name of Israyl’s Messiah and Savior of the world? Shouldn’t it be as simple as looking it up in the Bible? How obvious – even a child can do this! Isn’t that why the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible were preserved and translated into English, in order to proclaim the true name of the Savior to all the world? So accepted is the name “Jesus” that no one dares question its authenticity....... Couldn’t we safely ASSUME that the translators would not CHANGE the Messiah’s name. Can we safely assume that Satan the Devil – the Adversary of salvation - would not consider influencing the mind’s of men to CHANGE the words of Scripture, including the most important of them all......Satan’s influence upon the scribes and translators to change, alter and hide the only Names of the Father and Son was prophesied to take place! YHWH has told us beforehand that men would change His Name in the texts! ( Isayah 42:8; 52:5-6; Yeremyah 8:8; 23:26 -27; Ez.39:7; Zeph.3:9; Rev.8:3; 14:1)"........In the Hebrew language, the name “Jesus” does not derive from salvation. The Heavenly Father did not leave us without witness’ of this “grave” error. The Greek form of “Jesus” being Iesous , is pronounced “hey- soos ” and can be found in the Hebrew writings! Hey- soos is a legitimate Hebrew word! “Jesus” transliterated into Hebrew is “hey- soos ”. The following three verses show the word hey- soos being used in its original and true form, without the (J) of course as we have learned doesn’t exist in Hebrew, Greek or Latin. In each revealing verse, the Hebrew word hey- soos (Jesus) does not mean salvation, but “the horse”!................
http://www.remnantofyhwh.com/Jesus.htm
Jeremiah 23:26-28
"How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their fathers forgot my name through Baal worship. Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?" declares YAHWEH."
The Ineffable Name
"Names do not change from language to language. One can listen to a foreign broadcast and recognize names of world leaders such as Bush, Yeltsin, Kohl, and Mitterand. Names are transliterated ("given the same sound") by employing equivalent letters of a given alphabet. YHWH's Name does not change from language to language.
Even though the Tetragrammaton appeared in the Latin texts as JHVH(the equivalent of YHWH in pronunciation) the Hebrew vowel pointing was for adonai. In addition, the Jews made the first vowel "a" correspond to our short letter "e" as in "met," lest anyone reading the Hebrew would inadvertently blurt out the first part of the Sacred Name "Yah." (Hence the "e" in Jehovah.)
The Tetragrammaton, with the vowel pointing of the erroneous adonai, is even today called the "ineffable (unpronounceable) name" by those familiar with the Hebrew. It cannot be pronounced with the "adonai" vowel pointing! The translators, unaware of the Jewish tradition not to pronounce the Name as Yahweh, were influenced by the Jews and their substitution of the vowels of adonai. Therefore they ignorantly wrote "Jehovah."
Dr. J. B. Rotherham states in the preface of his Scipture concerning Jehovah:
"Erroneously written and pronounced Jehovah, which is merely a combination of the sacred Tetragrammaton and the vowels in the Hebrew word for Lord, substituted by the Jews for JHVH, because they shrank from pronouncing The Name, owing to an old misconception of the two passages, Ex. 20:7 and Lev. 24:16...To give the name JHVH the vowels of the word for Lord [Heb. Adonai], is about as hybrid a combination as it would be to spell the name Germany with the vowels in the name Portugal - viz., Gormuna. The monstrous combination Jehovah is not older than about 1520 A.D." (From this we may gather that the Jewish Scribes are not responsible for the hybrid combination.....2. The form Yahweh is hereby adopted as practically the best. The only competing form would be Yehweh, differing by only a single vowel "e" for "a" in the first syllable. But even this difference vanishes upon examination....." Expository Introduction To The Emphasised Bible - p.25 - added by me)
Rotherham was ahead of his time, but now many current dictionaries and encyclopedias admit the name Jehovah is wrong, that it properly should read "Yahweh."
The Encyclopedia Britannica (Micropedia, vol. 10) says:
"Yahweh-the personal name of the [El] of the Israelites ...The Masoretes, Jewish biblical scholars of the Middle Ages, replaced the vowel signs that had appeared above or beneath the consonants of YHWH with the vowel signs of Adonai or of Elohim. Thus the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH)came into being. Although Catholic scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20thcenturies biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh, thus this pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was never really lost. Greek transcriptions also indicate that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh."
Interestingly, even the Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge that the name Jehovah is improper. Their book, "Let Your Name Be Sanctified" freely admits on pages 16 and 18 that Yahweh is the superior translation of the Tetragrammaton. This book has lately been withdrawn. However, in the preface of their "The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures," we find on page 23 the following admission:
"While inclining to view the pronunciation 'Yahweh' as the more correct way, we have retained the form 'Jehovah' because of people's familiarity with it since the 14th century. Moreover, it preserves equally with other forms, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton JHVH."
Keeping Man's Tradition
We cannot let tradition lead us to call the Heavenly Abba by a wrong name! Much scholarly proof is now available to show that Jehovah is wrong. We are to walk in all the truth we are given so that YHWH will give us even more light. Our purpose is not to follow erroneous traditions of men: "Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men." (Mark 7:7)
The mistaken name Jehovah is said to have been given us about 1518 [/u]by Peter Gallatin who was confessor to Pope Leo X. The efforts not withstanding Protestant reformers to return to the truth of the Scipture, the majority of Protestants still retain the erroneous name Jehovah which was handed to us by the Catholics.
James Moffatt's Scipture uses the title "Eternal," a title used by some groups who deny YHWH's Name. Moffatt says in his preface:
"Strictly speaking, this ought to be rendered 'Yahweh,' which is familiar to modern readers in the erroneous form of 'Jehovah.' Were this a version intended for students of the original, there would be no hesitation whatever in printing 'Yahweh.'"
Moffatt admits that students of the original text (correct text) should use "Yahweh." Those who are not ardent students or lack interest in the original text given us by YHWH Himself call Him by titles like "Eternal."
http://www.remnantofyhwh.com/Is%20His%20Memorial%20Name%20Jehovah.htm
