by pr_capone 90 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
pr_capone,
You asked for God's original name? The Christian God of the Bible derives from the Hebrew God of the Bible who seems to derive from other Gods. I would have to ask you to specify which God to answer. There were Gods and Goddesses long prior to Moses. I doubt we could even find God's original name. If you mean the Most High God of Psalm 83:18, the thoughts already given are fine.
Respectfully,
OldSoul
Inquirer,
Further confusing things was the Germanic texts that listed "jod," "he," "vaw," "he" as the spelling of the Tetragrammaton. The Germans would have pronounced these Hebrew letters correctly as "Yodh-he-waw-he" from this spelling, but the English tongue pronounces this spelling as "Jod-he-vaw-he."
Respectfully,
OldSoul
What about these names for God-
El Elyon most high Is.14:13,14
El Olam everlasting Is 40:28
El Roi strong one who sees us Gen 16:13
El Shaddai God almighty Gen 17:1-21
Elohim created universe Gen 1:1
Elohim is Yayweh Duet 6:4
Yahweh-Jireh provides Gen 22:13,14
Yahweh-Sabboath Lord of Hosts 1 Sam 1:3
Yahweh-Shalom our peace Judges 6:24
Yahweh-Shammah present with us Ezek 48:35
etc....... and also can't think of where He says His name is Jealous
Anytime I ask a jw about these names they just change the subject.
Yahweh was a deity worshipped in southern Edom and Midian prior to being imported to Palestine, likely by Kenites. Many ancient memories preserved in OT pasaages and extraBibical references make this clear. The name may have originally been Beth-Yahweh, (Like Beth-El or Beth-baal meon etc.) shortened like many others. It seems possible even likley that the name was a toponym (place name) where a deity was associated as this is how Egyptian texts use the name. This process of abbreviation of a toponym to a deity name is otherwise known. The false etymology given in the OT by P has no real bearing on spelling or pronounciation. He disagreed with J over the name and it's use and by the time he wrote that passage in Exodus the original meaning and source were many centuries distant.
But, I think Jehovah is more correct because it sounds like other theophoric names (names that contain the divine name in the Hebrew Scriptures like Jehoash, and Jehosophat and also John.) There's something to think about.
But as Narkissos already explained twice, and as I was about to last night myself but decided to go to bed, the "o" in Jehoash does not correspond to the "o" in Jehovah but instead to the "v". As of the initial sheva, this is due to the theophoric element being prefixival. Thus the Greek form of Jehoash is Ióas (2 Kings 11:21, LXX), which seems to reflect an initial sheva, whereas when yh stands alone the vowel is "a" ("Yah" in Hebrew, -ia in Greek), and when yhw stands alone it is vocalized as Yaho or Yahu (cf. Iao and Iaou in Greek). When yhw is suffixival, it is yahu in Hebrew and -ia in Greek (cf. "Zedekiah", tsdkyhw = Zedekias in 2 Kings 24:18, LXX). Since the stand-alone form is also attested as Iabe and Iaoue (Greek lacks a letter for "w" so Iaoue approximates Iawe, as does Iabe) the evidence is pretty weighty that the intial vowel was "a", and the "w" in YHWH was part of the second syllable ("Jehovah" makes it part of a third syllable).
Jehovah is telling us because the people in the Bible contain his name!
Circular...you only think this is significant because you already think yhw corresponds to the "Jeho" of Jehovah.
I know Narki is going to disagree, but Jews have always favored the "e, o, a" combination.
As I pointed out last night, this is not true. The Aleppo Codex (the earliest complete text of the MT) clearly favors the "e" "a" combination, without the "o". And this is likely artifical, reflecting the vowel pointings in shema, one of the most common surrogates for YHWH in the post-biblical period. The triadic "e" "o" "a" combination is also early, but was not favored until much later.
I think the jews replaced the word Yahweh with the word LORD because there was so much controversy back then because eversince God's name was so holy they were afraid that they might mis-use it, they felt they were not even worthy to mention it....
Personal (crazy) idea of mine:
When Jesus taught his followers "our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name", could it be that he by "hallowed" meant that it shouldn`t be spoken? - because it was holy? To holy to be spoken? All you with knowledge in greek out there: What`s the greek word for "hallowed"? Could it mean what I think it might mean?
Also, on a more humorous note: Why was the form "Iehovah" used in that Indiana Jones movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", YOu can bet your life the director knows this is the true pronunciation! Why would he use it in his film?
Uh no that's not the reason. Watch the film again, they spelt the name jehovah in latin which is iehovah. You realized that it's just a movie, right?
Josie
The YHWH name also makes an appearance in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Anyone other than me noticed it? The funny thing is that the actor messed this scene up.
Which scene what that?
mrsjones5...It's when the old scholar (rabbi?) shows Indy the Staff of Ra and explains what the markings mean. This is the side with the tetragrammaton:
The funny thing is that he even says that the inscription refers "the Hebrew god", but he is showing the wrong side. He is showing the reverse side of the headpiece while he is saying that. But of course, the actor wouldn't have known the difference. When I noticed this while watching Raiders on TV as a teenager, I had a good laugh over it.
BTW, the two words preceding YHWH (on either side of the menorah) are qdsh "holy" and kbd which looks like it should be kbwd "glory, glorious" (i.e. "holy glorious Yahweh") but might be intended to be "honor" since the aged scholar says, translating, "but take back one qadam (?) to honor the Hebrew god whose ark this is". The second word in the inscription looks like 'cht "one" and the next one m'l "from above", but I don't know if the rest of it is gibberish or not.
