Some Early Church Fathers even ignored the name YHWH

by opusdei1972 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  opusdei1972

  I was reading the Bart's answer to Terry on th name "Jehovah", and I remembered that when I did my personal study about the Church Fathers of the second century I found that Justin Martyr ignored the divine name:

  From the First Apology of Justin Martyr:
  

  ... and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name. (Chapter 10)
  
  For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. (Chapter 61)

  Justin lived during the first half of the second century, so he knew no NT manuscript containing the name YHWH. And by other Justing's readings I concluded that he only knew, the OT Greek version, the Septuagint, in which you find "Kurios" (Lord) instead of YHWH.

  So, Justin was a bad "Jehovah's witness". :)
  
• 

  Phizzy

  God find Opus ! and ironic that JW's/WT quote J.M when it suits them !
• 

  DATA-DOG

  "Hopeless madness...", that's Jwism.

  DD
• 

  Half banana

  So Justin Martyr got one thing right!
• 

  wizzstick

  They do talk about this:
  

  The Challenge of Knowing God by Name (w10 7/1 pp.4-8)

  Such ones, like Justin Martyr, are 'apostate Christians'.

  Of course any Christian who disagrees with them is 'apostate'.
  
• 

  smiddy

  It`s funny how they claim Justin Martyr as an apostate christian who lived in the first half of the second century and yet they accept the Bible cannon by apostates of the third century and the protestants of the reformation .

  The logic of the Governing Body is something to behold. Crazy.

  smiddy
• 

  TTWSYF

  But I read in the 'should you believe in the trinity' booklet that Justin Martyr was someone that blaah blaah blaah.
• 

  TTWSYF

  Jesus said that no one knows the name of the father except those that Jesus has revealed his name to. To think that Jesus told a catholic monk the father's name and he told everyone one else would make Jesus a liar.

  just saying
• 

  Mad Irishman

  I'm not sure why this is an issue since all of Christendom believe YHWH (Jehovah in English) was God's name. This isn't a witness issue.

  The founding fathers of America believed Jehovah was God's name. Thomas Jefferson did. George Washington did. Abraham Lincoln did. Jehovah is used in thousands of great pieces of literature throughout history to represent God's name. Go to Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice and YHWH is right there on the tile when you walk in the building on the right hand side. Hemingway always referred to God as Jehovah.

  It wasn't until the witnesses started really pushing the issue to differentiate themselves from all the other Christian religions that they all started pulling back on the use of using YHWH and Jehovah.

  Jehovah and YHWH were around long before the Jehovah's Witnesses. They just used God's name like everyone else was doing in the 19th Century.

  Or you could just ask a Jew to take some time out of his very Jewy day and he'll let you know what God's name is (so long as it's not in public, because they are not supposed to say it out loud).

  But then again I'm not sure what the arrangement of the letters of God's name is supposed to prove. It's different in almost every language. If the text uses the original tetragrammaton then that's what should be translated. What vowels you use in between those letters is simply a metric of whatever language is being used. I think sometimes we overthink these things.
• 

  kaik

  Jehovah name was not used in the Antiquity nor in early medieval times. Jews do not use it. It did not appear until late 13th century, and it was not widely used in the Catholic Christianity. On the other hand Protestants churches used it extensively since the 18th century, especially the one of the English origin. Many traveling preaches in the 18th century America used the name, and appears regularly in the publications and bible translations since at least 1750, for example in the work of Julius Bate (+1771) and many other Protestants under influence of Hutchinson. Jehovah name also penetrated into Scandinavian Protestant denominations and was used by Swedish mystic Swedenborg (+1772). Either way the usage of the name is deeply tied with religious awakening of the Protestants in the 18th century and Jehovah witnesses borrowed something that was widely used by one time very popular theologians century earlier. Hardly anything they had invented.