by crankytoe 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
Hello, my bible study conductor has made this statement on several occasions. Is it true? I've heard that the name was removed from the old testament, but that it doesn't appear in the new testament. Will someone please clarify this for me?
Also, He says the word/name Jehovah means "causes to become"
But I've read elsewhere that it means "I am"
What's up with that?
Thanks again,
Crank,
If I recall correctly, the society claims they restored the name in the OT, but admitted the NT manuscripts didn't include the name Jehovah, so they inserted it where they thought it was appropriate.
W
Yes.. because everyone knows the early Christians were using the word "Jehovah" all the time.. *smashes head into monitor repeatedly at a slow and steady pace*
GBL
There is no single, exact meaning for YHVH. But Wikipedia has a decent article on the subject - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
Hey! Isn't adding to a translation just as bad as taking things out?
They really need to simma-down na!
They argue that we can assume the early Christians used the divine name, because they weren't fettered by Jewish tradition. So we can also assume they used it in their writings, and it must have been removed by the church at a later date. Even though there is no proof of these assumptions in the earliest manuscripts, they are certain that if we could find the originals, they would contain the divine name. Thus they feel that it is only right to "restore" it to the new testament.
Another argument they use is that anytime the OT is quoted, it is certain that the name was used, so they "replace" it there also.
That's an awful lot of ASSumptions...
No it isn't true. Jehovah can be found in several translations older and other than the NWT. In fact, JWs used to be fond of showing the name in the King James Version, the American Standard Version and others to people.
Perhaps the brag of the overseer is more akin to boasting that the JWs have been more prominent in the use of the name than any other group. (Kind of like if the USC Trojans were to say they put the "champion" back in Football - its a stretch, you get my drift)
In this sense the JWs may well be able to brag and they certainly are the largest and most prominent group in the world that use the name Jehovah.
Unfortunately for them, the name "Jehovah" as we all know is a mistake, a fabrication, is not reflective of the true pronunciation of the Divine Name nor was it used by biblical Jews or early Christians or even widely used by anyone before the 14th century A.D.
JWs make a fool of themselves to brag about the use of the name Jehovah.
-Eduardo Leaton Jr., Esq.
PS: Just wanted to add, JWs are very clever to obscure the use of the name "Jehovah" with the "use of a personal name of God" and thus leave the uncareful reader with the impression that the name Jehovah was used. They will in an article that talks about the name Jehovah, say that this is based on the Hebrew Tetragrammaton and then point to uses of the TETRAGRAMMATON, inscriptons, carvings, or in the bible translations, etc.. They will claim that early Christians used the "divine name" or that the Jews did or that the disuse of the divine name arose through superstition. Pehaps these are true, but the divine name being used in all of these instances WAS NOT the name "Jehovah" itself but instead was in fact a variation of the hebrew consonants, YHWH, perhaps sounding like "Yabe" or "Yahweh".
If the Jews themselves stopped using this name and the apostles didn't see it fit to revive its use in the early church (or the Jews themselves in later times) I can't see the reason why the dubs are so obsessed with this name.
One possibility is that the JWs are secretly connected with the freemasons for whom jehovah is the top word, it's the word. Whatever meaning it has for them it's almost certainly not the biblical one and they may even identify it with satan.
Oh for God's sake. There are people on this board who were top players in the Organization. My own father could probably be considered a "top player." They don't claim a Freemason connection. It's just one more baseless accusation. If there was a passing connection 125 years ago between newly organized bible students, and the Masons, it has long since been diluted to utter non-importance.
Why is this Russell/Freemason stuff being spammed all over this board? What can you possibly think it will accomplish? Isn't there enough information out there that IS true and provable, without making this your primary cause? What a waste.
"I am" is 'hyh ('ehyeh) in Hebrew, not yhwh. It is just a theological pun on the traditional divine name Yhwh in Exodus 3.
"He causes to become" is just one guess among many on the possible meaning of Yhwh, assuming that it actually derives from an ancient form (hwh) of the same verbal root (hyh) which is used in the aforementioned pun, which is far from certain.
