Is it because many believe that Jesus Christ / God / Holy spirit are all one being, and after Jesus Christ was born they stopped using God's name and put all focus on Jesus?
Why isn' the name "Jehovah" used?
by MichaelM 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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greendawn
The name jehovah ceased to be used by the Jews themselves before Jesus appeared on earth I believe because it was too holy for them to pronounce. In fact in apostolic times the early church used the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures which does not contain the name jehovah or Yahweh more precisely.
Then the church came to be associated more closely with the Christ and the name jehovah with the old testament and the obsolete Mosaic law and so it never came into use despite what the JWs claim.
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emptywords
The tetragrammaton can been seen in many famous cathedrals and churchs in Europe, Basilica Lyons, France Bourges Cathedral, France church in La Celle Dunoise, France Church in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Stasbourg Cahedral, France Saint Mark's Cathedral, Venic, Italy. A dutch reformed church in Paarl used to have a cornerstone on which were inscribed the words JEHOVAH JIREH (Jehovah Will Provide. was replaced later with the LORD will provide.
There is an international exceptance of the form Jehovah. Look in encylopedias.
Was due to superstition that the name ceased to be used by Jews. But interesting other bible prophets names are used such as Jeremiah, (Jehovah exults) Yeshua - Jesus (Jehovah is salvation) and many other hallujah praise Jah and abbreviation and many more...just type in the name Jehovah on the net and you will get a lot of information, also type in what Hebrew bible names mean that is a real good site.
Cheers
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jwfacts
It is a very important point to recognise that the word Jehovah YHWH has not been found in a single New Testament ancient document, and raises the question as to why Jesus and the Apostles never used it.
Obviously YHWH was 'illegal' to pronounce out loud by the first century and had been removed from most Septuagint versions of the Old Testament, so the simple answer is that Jesus did not use it as it was not commonly being used.
Another explaination is that Jesus used the far more endearing expression Father. YHWH conjoured up images of the Jewish God of war that would have alienated the non Jews. Jesus wanted his followers to recognise God as a loving father that all could have a relationship with.
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emptywords
Thanks for that JWFacts....would like to no more about Jehovah of the old scriptures and Jesus relationship with him..
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bethlehem
jwfacts: I was discussing this with a JW yesterday,they insist that it was in the new testament,is there a solid argument or website on this?
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LiveLife
bethlehem,
The name "Jehovah" does not appear in any extant original language manuscripts from any time period. The name YHWH does appear, but not in any extant Greek manuscripts. In the late 1300s, at least 1300 years after Jesus was dead, Shem Tob translated the gospel of Matthew into Hebrew. All New Testament inclusion of the name YHWH dates to some point after this time and usually takes the form of selective replacement of either God or Lord (some variant of theos or kurios). Such replacement of a Greek word for a Hebrew name is not translation and is the most consistently glaring flaw in the mistranslation that is the New World Translation.
A total of 237 times the translation committee chose to insert a name for which they had no translational authority save appealing to translations from Greek into Hebrew dating to post-1350 AD. In other words, they use the indisputable mistranslation of Greek into Hebrew by Shem Tob and others to justify indisputable mistranslation of Greek into English.
Jehovah's Witnesses are masters at manipulating language to suit the needs of their doctrine.
Emptywords makes it seem that YHWH appears in many churches and cathedrals in many nations equals international acceptance of the name "Jehovah". This is fallacious reasoning.
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Hellrider
The argument that the jews stopped using the divine name only due to superstition, is just half the story behind this. The real reason lay in the development of the jewish religion. Not until the jews returned from Babylon did judaism become an actual monotheistic religion. Prior to the exile, the jews believed in many gods, in the sense that they believed that many gods existed. However, Yahweh was their God, the god of Israel, and it was illegal for them to worship any other Gods than this god, the patron god of Israel. This is evident from the OT itself, in numerous places, such as the first commandment ("thou shalt not worship any other gods than me", etc.). After the Babylonian exile, this belief was done away with (the belief that other Gods actually existed), and when the idea arose that only ONE god existed...then there was no longer any need for a name ascribed to this ONE god. A name is, after all, just something used to distinguish one "entity" from another, and due to this, the "divine name" in one sense became an embarassment to the jewish religion, because it reminded them of a past in which they believed in many gods (which is blasphemy). Note, for example, how terms like "the God of Israel" and similar terms, as well as anythhing about Baal, Moloch etc, are not mentioned in the NT. There is a reason for this...
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bethlehem
Thanks for the info guys.
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DoodleBearRae
I go to a non-denominational Christian church. The minister there uses the terms Elohim, Yahweh, Jehovah, God and Lord interchangeably.