Why using Jehovah for God's name is as good as using Yahweh
by oppostate 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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CalebInFloroda
I'm also a Sephardic Jew and a philologist. Both sides of my family are from Spain, and we are of the tribe of Judah, with possibly some Benjamin stock.
I have to admit that there is some history of the Jews uttering the name very early in their history, but by the beginning of the era of the Second Temple the Name stopped being uttered. This was likely due to exposure to pagan religion practice during the Diaspora.
While I am not in any position to claim what amount of understanding or grasp you have of historical Judaism, as an etymologist and practicing Jew I can attest that no Jew has ever viewed avoiding the use of the name as a "superstition." That term and accusation can historically be traced to anti-Semitic sources that Christianity separated itself from after the Shoah. You are the first Jew who I've seen use such a non-Jewish polemic against their own people.
Be that as it may, Jews are quite aware that making a thing is not the same as using a thing. Again the Holy of Holies was created and stood before the Jewish people every day for generations, but only one person ever saw it from the inside, and that only once a year. Just because it was there every day didn't mean it was meant to be used. On the contrary the fact it was there and rarely used and unseen by most was meant to explain what holiness meant.
The same goes for the Name. Just because it got written to be present always in scrolls doesn't mean it has to be read. Holy things do not get treated that way. As the theology of Israelites grew and the era following Babylonian captivity came about, the Jews were careful to avoid practices that imitated the pagans.
While some are of the opinion that a person might remain ethnically Jewish if they be atheist or Christian, they are not being true to their heritage if they use anti-Semitic polemics to describe the practices of their fellow Jews. Jewish is as Jewish does, not by what it claims .
And I also thought about what it would be like to be a Messianic Jew or the like. But upon learning that Christians killed over 2.5 million of my family members in the Holocaust and chased my family from Spain in 1492 after torturing and killing several thousand relatives then too, I felt being a Jewish Christian would be tantamount to suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
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oppostate
Dear CalebInFlorida, you are totally entitled to your opinion. I make no judgement on your sense of being Jewish, as I make no claims to completely follow ancient laws written down by Moses. I used the connotation of superstition that means "belief" and not "fallacy". Others here may call such belief just that a "fallacy" to me they are traditions and customs, which are expansions and exaggerations of the precepts found in the Torah. Fundamentalist Jewish belief can be just as fanatical as Medieval Crusaders' who went slaying anyone who wasn't a Pope follower, both Eastern Orthodox Christian and Muslim cities were equally seiged, stormed and pillaged, the Jews were always found themselves caught in the middle and persecuted by all.
It amazes, it shocks me, how a Jew can excuse his murdering of a fellow Jew, a public figure like Yitzak Rabin. It appalls me that some Jews in Israel would opt to exterminate the Palestinians altogether, a Palestinian ethnic cleansing. Have we not learned from our experience as a people?
I have no problem in calling Kabbalism and Gematria superstitions, they should be called what they are, just like a religion that acts in cultish ways should be called a cult. And in my opinion that's what the JW religion actually is. As Oubliette likes to reminds us "Let's review: It's a cult!" Let's call it what it is.
Being descended from Sephardim I've also found prejudice from East European background Jews. They consider themselves more "Jewish" more deserving of belonging to the ethnic name, even secular Ashkenazi Jews show a propensity to look down on Sephardim. That's a very sad and very true fact of modern life in the Jewish State of Israel.
The Sephardim aren't alone in being ostracised. Karaite, Ethiopian and Messianic Jews are all minorities that are sidelined by the Ashkenazi Jews who have more influence.
In Bible times there were many sects, Saducees, Pharisees, Essenes, etc. We are now realizing how the Masoretic text is not as faithful as the Septuagint translation thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls, these predate any masoretic surviving text by a thousand years. The Dead Sea Scrolls support readings that are found in the Septuagint but read different in the Masoretic text. Also there are "lacunae" in the masoretic text that are preserved in the Septuagint and appear confirmed in recompiled Dead Sea Scroll fragments.
One interesting point you bring up is the big impact of Babylonian captivity had on the worship of the One God. Before the Babylonian exile, archaeology reveals that in the Holy Land there was rampant disregard for unique worship of the Lord God (YHWH). There have been idol figures from pre Babylonian Exile found in every Tel just about.
The worship of Baals and fertility goddesses was quite widespread during those times. It was then that many prophets of YHWH declared condemnation for such pagan practices and insisted on exclusive worship of the One God. The use of the tetragrammaton was very obvious as can be deduced from the Biblical narrative and from archaeological finds from that era.
Yet the archaeological record also brings to light that the returning Jews worshiped the One God more exclusively than their predecessors. It is during this time that Talmudic traditions became more ingrained in Jewish culture and persist till today. It is a constant dialog of commentary on what the Torah actually means. It is not Holy Writ. The Talmud is a product of cultural tradition without the claim of inspiration.
The command to abstain from pronouncing the name of the One God isn't found in the Torah, nor the Prophets, in fact the Psalms abound with the tetragrammaton. These psalms were meant to be sung out loud, sung for others to hear, to sing together, to use in communal worship, not just personal meditation.
I maintain that the restriction to pronounce the Divine Name is a later practice/belief (and I'll not use the word superstition to define it if it bothers you, for that I apologize) that wasn't present in Biblical times. This belief/practice was a later development, and can be traced to post-exilic times.
Please accept my apology if in any of my statements you felt insulted, it was never my intention. I wish you peace. Shalom.
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Lieu
Why bother? Jesus never did. Not even once.
It isn't the name given by which all men can get saved anyway.
And when God took out a people "for his name", they were called Israelites.
And no one cares about a "Dark Ages" monk. He would have done better passing out bread to Europe's starving masses who were being treated as parias by the RCC.
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zeb
Taking the lead from Jesus (the Latinised form of Yeshuah) I use as he did.. 'Father'. Im sure he knows who he is. -
CalebInFloroda
My "sense" of being Jewish? I'm a little lost.
First of all I am not a Fundamentalist, and 2nd I don't judge Jews who are.
Next I have many Ashkenazi friends who are like family and I love my Palestinian neighbors. I know some people have problems with others, but I don't. I believe the world is what we make of it.
And Jews don't get all their doctrine from Scripture like JWs or Protestant Christians do. Tanakh is a product of Jewish religion, not its basis. Abraham and Moses came first before Torah. So in Jewish theology it makes little sense to claim the "it's not forbidden in Scripture" argument, because Jews don't do have that as a part of their theology. Worship of the God of Abraham came first, and Tanakh was not settled until the first century CE, so the point you are making is moot.
And lastly, Jews pray the Psalms to this day. What do you think we do when we go the Western Wall? Have you never been to Temple on Shabbat? What's in your Siddur? Where did you get the idea the Jews only use the Psalms for personal meditation? It's our official hymnal and prayer book, for crying out loud! What Jews are you talking about?
On that I leave you to your views. I just hope people on this forum have enough sense to know what's what. You may be of Jewish stock, ethnically speaking, but just because you were at Woodstock doesn't make you a real hippie.
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DATA-DOG
So THOUSANDS of years later, people are still aguing about which unknown "name" to use for "God." Hmmmm.....ok.
As usual, no answers...except that "God" cannot be contained by humans.
DD
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oppostate
I told you I'm not trying to offend you. And if you are offended then you find offense where there isn't any meant.
You are nit picking parts of what I said without reference to others. How much percentage of the Jewish population in Israel really sing psalms in worship?
Close to about half the population consider themselves secular/non-religious Jews. Another quarter consider themselves hardly religious, and the ones that claim to be orthodox are less than a tenth of the population. These fanatical fundamentalists act like bullies. And they should be opposed--They wield too much influence as it is.
I've not yet had a chance to visit the Wailing Wall nor any of the Holy Sites, it is something I'd like to do. I've seen how Ladinos in Turkey hide what they are, out of necessity. I've been to Germany and seen the remains of awful acts of inhumane cruelty. I've learned of the gross abuses the Catholic Inquisition perpetrated on the Jewish population who were forced into baptism in my very own home country. It sickens me such things were done, it is a testimony to the cruelty of man towards his fellow man.
I am attracted to the teaching of a certain Jew from Nazareth, who said to love your enemies and that blessed are the peacemakers. This in no way condones violence against anyone, I don't believe in looking the other way in the face of evil. Jesus threw the money changers out of the Temple for a reason, these lucre-loving profit-mongers disrespected what the Temple stood for. I believe that there's a time for everything under Heaven. So be it.
Pharisee based Rabbinical Judaism doesn't take all their doctrine from the Tanakh, you are correct, and I stated such above in mentioning the tradition of Talmud loving students of Scripture. But that's not for me, sorry, and it seems it isn't for 3/4 of the Jewish population in the land of Israel. Are you declaring them non-Jews? What? Because they might have been at Woodstock and weren't hippies?
Give me a break Caleb! If the Tanakh wasn't settled until the first century, Torah certainly was, and even in the time of Josiah there was an attempt to fully establish the Law over the land.
I don't doubt you have many Ashkenazi friends who are not bigots. You remind me of WASPs who say "I have black friends!" And so what. None of that detracts from the factual point I made about the mistreatment of Jewish minorities among Israelis, and especially so by the fanatically orthodox. Why was Yitzak Rabin, may he rest in peace, killed? Who killed him? It wasn't a Palestinian, Caleb, and it wasn't a secular/non-religious Jew. Was it? Lo, no it was not.
Unlike you I do judge what Jewish fundamentalist fanatics do, and I think it's deplorable. It's inhuman, it is wrong! They are bullies and they should be opposed.
Despite what you might say, I still maintain I meant no offense and if you do take offense then you are blind to the fact that my gripe is with fanatics who impose their judgements on others, these folks deserve to be judged with the same measuring stick they whip their fellows. May God be their judge and not I, He well knows I have little patience for bullies.
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freemindfade
This is why the middle east is such a hot mess. A great example. Debating over the pronunciation of an unknown name of a bronze age dessert god. If he was in fact up there I am sure he is rolling on the freaking floor laughing at this BS. -
oppostate
@freemindface
You're putting it way too simplistically and with such obvious uncaring and dismissive fashion that it seems hardly worth it to argue with you.
But I'm going to say that the OP dealt with the opinionated poo-pooing of Raymundus Martin transliterating the Divine Name as IEHOVA and how our English Jehovah is just as good a transliteration for the tetragrammaton as Yahweh is, and perhaps even better due to the evidence presented by some researchers who are considered experts in this topic.
It's just so sad that when a topic dealing with a doctrinal point of Jehovah's Witnesses fundamental beliefs gets brought up some here make idiotic trolling remarks, proving only how unacquainted with scholarly research you seem.
The Middle East isn't in turmoil because we argue over the pronunciation of the Divine Name. It is in turmoil because bigots refuse to act in a civilized manner and use words to reason rather than guns to inflict harm. That is the root of the turmoil there.
My assertion in the OP stands. And if you wish to flap your cojones around, kindly do so in your own thread--Go title it "Freemindfade's opinion of deities and how he flaunts his swollen cojones to the heavens." If you will.