We don't know the actual name. If it is significant, truly, for salvation, then everyone is screwed, however you want to justify the version of it that you use. God who must not be named, did not see fit to keep it actually KNOWN. Oral traditions are dead.
Why using Jehovah for God's name is as good as using Yahweh
by oppostate 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Earnest
In an article on the pronunciation of the name by the Karaite Nehemia Gordon he wrote :
It is worth noting that the English Jehovah is quite simply an Anglicized form of Yehovah. The main difference is that the English letter J has crept its way into the divine name. Of course, Hebrew does not have a J sound and the letter in Hebrew is Yod which is pronounced like English "Y". Another difference is that in the Masoretic text the name has the accent on the end of the word. So the name is really pronounced Yehovah with the emphasis on "vah". Pronouncing the name Yehovah with the emphasis on "ho" (as in English Jehovah) would quite simply be a mistake.
One question we must consider is how the Masoretes, the medieval scribes who copied the text of Scripture and suppressed the "o" in Yehovah, could have known the true pronunciation of the name. After all, the ban on the name was supposedly in full force since the time of Abba Saul in the 2nd century CE. One of the things we know about the Masoretic scribes is that they were Karaites. We also know that there were two factions of Karaites, those that required the pronunciation of the name and those that forbade it. It is clear that the Masoretes belonged to the group that forbade the pronunciation of the name and this was why they suppressed the middle vowel from Yehovah. At the same time they heard how the other Karaites pronounced the name so they knew how it was properly pronounced. The 10th century Karaite sage Kirkisani [who I earlier referred to as Quirquisani] reports that the Karaites who pronounced the name were based in Persia (Khorasan). Persia had been a major Jewish center ever since the 10 Tribes were exiled to the "cities of Media" (2Ki 17:6) and remained so up until the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Because Persia was so far from the Rabbinical centers of Galilee and Babylonia, the Jews of Persia were protected from the Rabbinical innovations in the Mishnah and Talmud up until the 7th century CE. It was only when the Rabbis attempted to impose these innovations on the Jews of Persia in the 7th-8th centuries that the Karaite Movement rose up to ensure the preservation of the old ways. So it is not surprising that the Karaites of Persia preserved the correct pronunciation of the name from ancient times. It seems that the Masoretes suppressed the vowel "o" from the divine name to prevent their fellow Karaites from simply reading the name as it was written. Now when these Karaites read the Biblical text, they had to provide the vowel missing from the name themselves.
My apologies for the cut and paste but I could not find the article online to link to. It had previously been published on the website Karaite Korner.
I would also note that the Watchtower Society referred to Raymundus Martini in the article on 'Jehovah' in the book 'Aid to Bible Understanding', 1971, p.885 where it states :
The first recorded use of [Jehova(h)] dates from the thirteenth century C.E. Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican Order, used it in his book Pugeo Fidei of the year 1270.
The article also includes a copy of p.559 of the book containing the name Jehova. I have access to a copy of Pugeo Fidei myself and can verify this.
This reference to Raymundus Martini is repeated in the volume 'Insight on the Scriptures' which is why the history of the English name representing the tetragrammaton is far more familiar to Jehovah's Witnesses than most others.