The Hebrew Tetragrammaton Or God's Name

I think there are other threads like this but I wanted to make a thread that doesn't debate IF God has a name but one that discusses how his name is pronounced in English and other languages.

God appreciates any effort made to use his name (even though it will be different in other languages) especially in personal prayer to him. After all God is a title like King or President, thus it's impersonal.

For the purpose of this thread there shall be no debate over the Tetragrammaton itself, the Hebrew symbols that represent God's name, that is universally accepted as what represents God's name. The debate is how to pronounce it.

From Wikipedia

Tetragrammaton (from the Greek τετραγράμματον, meaning '[word of] four letters' (tetra "four" + gramma (gen. grammatos) "letter"), [1] refers to יהוה, one of the names of the God of Israel. יהוה is composed of four Hebrew consonants and it occurs over 6000 times in the Hebrew Consonantal Text. יהוה is sometimes referred to as the unvocalized Tetragrammaton since it contains no vowel points.

The Tetragrammaton

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I would say the best place to start with is other Hebrew names that contain the exact same symbols as the Tetragrammaton. Hebrew runs backwords compared to English

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From this chart highlighted at the top, three exact characters always equals the same pronunciation and letters "JEHO".

This is very important because many say we can't pronouce God's name because we don't have vowels, Wikipedia had this to say

These four letters are usually transliterated from Hebrew as IHVH in Latin, JHWH in German, French and Dutch, and YHWH in English. This was variously rendered as "Yahweh" or "Jehovah", since in Latin there was no distinct lettering to distinguish 'Y' from 'J', or 'W' from 'V', and the Hebrew does not clearly indicate the omitted vowels.

Looking at other Hebrew names gives us the best indicator as to true pronunciation and spelling.

Furthermore these bibles do use the name "Jehovah" in Psalm 83:18

Hebrew Bible
וידעו כי אתה שמך יהוה לבדך עליון על כל הארץ׃
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>^^^^

awesome thread. alot of stuff ive never seen. ill be honest with you, ive never thought of comparing the name to other names with the same beginning. seems logical

im trying to see if i still have it, but i read somewhere that yahweh is actually a euphemism that egyptians used to mock the isrealites with. not sure how true it is but anyway, looking for the link

reply to post by miriam0566


Thanks, some more information

ה Heh = 'H'; sometimes silent at the beginning or the end of a word.

Hakarat Tovah (Hebrew) תודה =Tovah

The Hebrew word for "Gratitude" notice again the same character this time at the end of the word, remember Hebrew is the reverse to English, now we did the other half of the word pronounced the "VAH" part

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"The spelling and the pronunciation (of God's Divine Name) are not highly important. What is highly important is to keep it clear that this is a personal name. There are several texts that cannot be properly understood if we translate this name by a common noun like 'LORD'..." --Quoted From -- Steven T. Byington, translator of The Bible in Living English,

"The oldest archeological testimony favors the pronunciation Jehovah." -- Quoted From --M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar, Specialist of the Tetragram; president of the Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

"...the most common "error" made by most translators in the last 3500 years...is their elimination of heaven's revealed Name of the Most High, Yahweh(Jehovah)" -- quoted from - A. B. Traina; in the Preface of the Holy Name Bible

"The substitution of the word "Lord" is most unhappy; for...it in NO WAY represents the meaning of the sacred name (Jehovah)..." - The 1872 edition of Smith's Bible Dictionary

"The removal of the Tetragrammaton (Jehovah) from the New Testament and its replacement with the surrogates KYRIOS and THEOS blurred the original distinction between the Lord God and the Lord Christ, and in many passages made it impossible which one was meant. As time went on...it was often impossible to distinguish between them. Thus it may be that the removal of the Tetragrammaton (Jehovah) contributed significantly to the later...Trinity " - George Howard, Bible Scholar ; The Name of God in the New Testament, BAR 4.1 (March 1978), pg 15

God's name Jehovah/Yahowah appears in the original hebrew text about 7000 times, but the NIV fails to mention it even once. When asked about this, Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV's committee wrote : "Here is why we did not : You are right - that Jehovah is a distinctive name for God and ideally we should have used it. But we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of throwing that down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as, 'Yahweh (Jehovah) is my shepherd.' Immediately, we would have translated for nothing. Nobody would have used it (or purchased it). Oh, maybe you and a handful [of] others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to get two million to read it- that is how many have bought it to date- and to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the correct translation of Yahweh(Jehovah) . . . It was a hard decision, and many of our translators agree with you." - The Reason NIV removed Jehovah's Name Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV's committee

The quote above is the most pathetic answer I have ever heard about why God's name was removed from the bible.

"...But at least by the third century B.C.E. the pronunciation of the name YHWH (Jehovah) was avoided, and Adonai, "the Lord," was substituted for it..." - Encyclopedia Judaica (p. 679).

I will conclude with this

"it is impossible to have a deep relationship with a nameless God." --Maimonides; a Jewish scholar and famous talmudist

[edit on 10-3-2009 by Blue_Jay33]

Spanish Hebrew Bible, Solsona, Catalonia, Spain, 1384. Tetragrammaton
BL King's MS I, f. 2r
Copyright © The British Library Board

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Spanish Hebrew Bible

This 14th-century design illuminates the Tetragrammaton: the four-letter inscription denoting the name of God. Despite lacking all representational imagery, the abstract illuminations manage to evoke the ceiling of a temple dome, and imbue the manuscript with a divine presence.




Notice the highlighted symbols for:

Vav--------He-----Yod

(V/O/U)----(H)-----(Y)

So the V and the H are pretty clear the Y is a different story.

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"Y" or "J"
We must also be consistent with the pronunciation
of all other Hebrew names that start with the letter "Y".
Universally, these names are translated into the
English Language - as starting with the letter "J".

Jesus is a good example of this principal.
In Hebrew his name is Yehoshuah. If we use a "J"
instead of a "Y" - then we need to apply the same
Principal when converting the Name of God into
English.

Thus, the Hebrew
"ye-ru-sha-LA-yim" became "Jerusalem";
"ye-ri-HO" became "Jericho";
and "yar-DEN" become "Jordan".
Hebrew personal names such as
"yo-NA" became "Jonah",
"yi-SHAI" became "Jesse"
and "ye-SHU-a" became "Jesus".

Likewise
"Yehowah" became "Jehovah" in english.

DO YOU SEE THE PATTERN ?

"Jehovah is simply the form that conforms to normal
English usage with respect to Hebrew names in the Bible.
For example, in Hebrew, the name “Isaiah” was probably
pronounced “Yeshayahu.” Similarly the English “Jerusalem”
was, in Hebrew, pronounced “Yerushalaim.” “Jesus” was
pronounced “Yeshua” or “Yehohshua”. The names Isaiah,
Jerusalem and Jesus, were not the original Hebrew or
Greek pronunciations. It is normal and proper for names
to take on different pronunciations when they are
transferred into another language. In Hebrew, God’s name
was likely pronounced “Yehowah,” in Spanish it is Jehová
(pronounced: ‘he-o-vá’), in English we say “Jehovah.”
-The Divine Name of God;
Pursuit of Scriptural Truth
Home Christians.net

Originally posted by miriam0566
awesome thread. alot of stuff ive never seen. ill be honest with you, ive never thought of comparing the name to other names with the same beginning. seems logical

im trying to see if i still have it, but i read somewhere that yahweh is actually a euphemism that egyptians used to mock the isrealites with. not sure how true it is but anyway, looking for the link

I've also heard that "Yahweh" is most likely not a correct way of pronouncing the Tetragramaton since Hebrews would have most likely pronounced the name using 3 syllables and not 2.

LOVE this thread!

Praise Jah!!!!!!!!

reply to post by holywar


Thanks again

Now for the scriptures that tell us how important the actual use of his name is. I will do two from the Old Testament(Hebrew) and one from the New Testament(Greek).

Compare these bible verses between bibles

Old Testament
Proverbs 18:10
American Standard Version
"The name of Jehovah is a strong tower; The righteous runneth into it, and is safe."

Compared to a version that doesn't use his name.

NIV
"The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
the righteous run to it and are safe."

So obviously we need to know what it is, and use the "the name of the LORD" in order for it to be an effective "strong tower" for ourselves.


New Testament
Romans 10:12-14 (New Living Translation)
12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

Compared to

NSB
12 For there is no difference between Jew and Greek. The same Lord (God) of all is abounding in riches for all who call on him.
13 “Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.”
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without someone to preach?

So to be saved you have to call "on the name of the Lord", so it is very important that we know what it is, and use it. The bible that goes ahead and tells us what it actually is, helps us do what the scripture tells us to do. Thus bibles that have removed God's name, have really left it's reader guessing on this topic.


Finally there is Joel 2:30-32 (Old Testament) (ASV)
30 And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah cometh.
32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as Jehovah hath said, and among the remnant those whom Jehovah doth call.

Compared to

NIV
"30 I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
32 And everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be deliverance,
as the LORD has said,
among the survivors
whom the LORD calls."

The importance of the need to use his personal name in these verses is self evident.

I am actually shocked that someone brought this up.

When I was Christian I could not understand how fellow Christians (other versions) would reduce the one and only true God of our Bible Jehovah down to just a mere title........God, Lord.......... But yet all the pagan Gods in the Bible had names and were called upon by name. I even met some that thought Jehovah was just a mere title like God and Lord.....

"we don't know the correct pronunciation so we don't use it"...............What!?!? What kind of answer was that?

I will stop here I am starting to get off topic.

Thank you for bringing that up. Very interesting thread

Besides that is one of my tattoos........

I cant remember which letters it is but there is a secret way to pronounce the connects between two of the letters, neither Jehovah or Yahweh is the correct pronunciation.

For more details check out the Sefer Yitzrah by Aryah Kaplan

reply to post by gYvMessanger


Did you even read this thread or did you just post?

I more than proved it, you just can't come into any thread disagree with the OP and say no it isn't with no information to back it up.

I did read the thread, I disagreed with it, and I posted the place where the information is that back up what I say, I'm not going to copy out a whole chapter of the book onto a discussion board.

Man, it means tetrahedron is gravity. AKA

It is the geometry of reality. They always have given us half the puzzel. The great pyramids are half.
Double star tetrahedron, aka Star of david.
Nassim Harramien

Interesting subject, although I'm not dis-crediting the name at all whatsoever but I've brought this up in other threads of mine but the personal thoughts regarding it has remained ignored and I though this would be the perfect place to discuss it.

Anyways the name correctly pronounced when read as the Hebrews themselves read it which was from right to left is actually "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh"

We can see this simplicity in a scripture in Exodus. In this scripture, Moses is standing on Mount Sinai and he is having communion with Yahweh. The scripture says:

And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Exodus 3:13-15

A very simple phrase, "I AM," describes the Lord of The Universe. Some have gone to extensive lengths to complicate the character of Yahweh, but in the end Yahweh simply says, I AM. But is "I AM" overly simplified? Someone might think in their mind, "okay, so you are, big deal, we all are." But if you look at the structure of the words in the phrase, there is much more to "I AM," than meets the eye. The Name, spelled out in Hebrew, and read from right to left, is:





Transliterated out into the English language, it reads, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" or [Eh-yah Ash-air Eh-yah], meaning I AM That I AM. The word Ehyeh has some strange characteristics. It has an imperfective aspect, which is another way of saying that it could mean the same thing but in different aspects of that same thing. For instance, it could mean "I Was," "I Am Presently," or "I Will Be," all in the same instance. In this way, Yahweh is showing us that He has been and always will be the God over time and space. A quick check of the Internet showed that Jewish scholars come to the same conclusion about the meaning of the name, "I AM."


So in a nutshell, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh is the past-tense pronunciation but Yahweh is most definitely the correct modern day as it represents his sovereignty over the future and not just the past.

[edit on 20-4-2009 by hezekiah]

reply to post by hezekiah

So in a nutshell, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh is the past-tense pronunciation but Yahweh is most definitely the correct modern day as it represents his sovereignty over the future and not just the past.

"I AM THAT I AM" is not a name. Yahweh is the correct pronunciation in Hebrew of that there is no debate. But Hebrew and English are very different languages, it has been well documented that IN English God's name IS Jehovah. This corresponds to how all the other names in the bible have been translated into English as well, they are different from there Hebrew counterparts as well. The name Jehovah never existed before the creation of the English language, that alone helps to answer the question. Almost every English bible uses Jehovah, if they use God's name at all. As you could see in the 11 bibles I quoted early in this thread, for anybody to say they are all wrong is highly challenging to the bible itself.

[edit on 20-4-2009 by Blue_Jay33]

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


Yes you are correct the name Jehovah didn't exist until the English language came into existence and neither did Jesus which can be translated into Zeus and you still don't argue to challenge that, the purpose of them giving you these names is because behind them have meaning and behind them have purpose don't you think Satan was aware of that?

And Jehovah is pronounced entirely different than Yahweh although those who are ignorant to the correct pronunciation I'm sure will go without judgment for their ignorance.

Never the less you need to actually see the source of where I've drawn these factual conclusions go here:

I AM THAT I AM

Then you'll understand when we are told he is Jesus "savior of our sins" alone tells you there's meaning behind his name so if you looked in the dictionary on who Jesus is in webster the definition should be Savior, or maybe even Messiah depending the version of text you have.

Either way when you translate the KEYWORD savior back into hebrew you get the initials YHVH pronounced Yahweh which translates into I AM THAT I AM.

You confuse Yahweh with Yeshua, and almighty Elohim.

“The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to those, You want to know my name? I am called according to my actions. When I judge the creatures I am Elohim, and when I have mercy with My world, I am named YHVH” (Ex R. 3:6).

Proceed here after you've had your lesson in Hebrew:

More Facts...

Maybe now you will understand how the phrase "I AM" is associated with the initials YHVH not the actual name of God.

People can misinterpret such dire facts so easily these days without studying facts themselves.

[edit on 20-4-2009 by hezekiah]

The Divine Name in the Christian Greek Scriptures

There is evidence that Jesus’ disciples used the Tetragrammaton in their writings. In his work De viris inlustribus [Concerning Illustrious Men], chapter III, Jerome, in the fourth century, wrote the following: “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed. Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Beroea to copy it.” (Translation from the Latin text edited by E. C. Richardson and published in the series “Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur,” Vol. 14, Leipzig, 1896, pp. 8, 9.)

Matthew made more than a hundred quotations from the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. Where these quotations included the divine name he would have been obliged faithfully to include the Tetragrammaton in his Hebrew Gospel account. When the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Greek, the Tetragrammaton was left untranslated within the Greek text according to the practice of that time.

Not only Matthew but all the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures quoted verses from the Hebrew text or from the Septuagint where the divine name appears. For example, in Peter’s speech in Ac 3:22 a quotation is made from De 18:15 where the Tetragrammaton appears in a papyrus fragment of the Septuagint dated to the first century B.C.E.

As a follower of Christ, Peter used God’s name, Jehovah. When Peter’s speech was put on record the Tetragrammaton was here used according to the practice during the first century B.C.E. and the first century C.E.

Sometime during the second or third century C.E. the scribes removed the Tetragrammaton from both the Septuagint and the Christian Greek Scriptures and replaced it with Ky′ri·os, “Lord” or The·os′, “God.”

Concerning the use of the Tetragrammaton in the Christian Greek Scriptures, George Howard of the University of Georgia wrote in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 96, 1977, p. 63: “Recent discoveries in Egypt and the Judean Desert allow us to see first hand the use of God’s name in pre-Christian times. These discoveries are significant for N[ew] T[estament] studies in that they form a literary analogy with the earliest Christian documents and may explain how NT authors used the divine name. In the following pages we will set forth a theory that the divine name, יהוה (and possibly abbreviations of it), was originally written in the NT quotations of and allusions to the O[ld] T[estament] and that in the course of time it was replaced mainly with the surrogate [abbreviation for Ky′ri·os, “Lord”]. This removal of the Tetragram[maton], in our view, created a confusion in the minds of early Gentile Christians about the relationship between the ‘Lord God’ and the ‘Lord Christ’ which is reflected in the MS tradition of the NT text itself.”

Throughout the centuries many translations of parts or of all the Christian Greek Scriptures have been made into Hebrew. Such translations, designated in this work by “J” with a superior number, have restored the divine name to the inspired Christian Greek Scriptures in various places. They have restored the divine name not only when coming upon quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures but also in other places where the texts called for such restoration.

To know where the divine name was replaced by the Greek words Κύριος and Θεός, determined where the inspired Christian writers have quoted verses, passages and expressions from the Hebrew Scriptures and then refer back to the Hebrew text to ascertain whether the divine name appears there. In this way we can determine the identity to give Ky′ri·os and The·os′ and the personality with which to clothe them.

Finally Κύριος / Ky′ri·os has this note in the Strongs/ Vine dictionary of Bible words in English, Greek and Hebrew

#2962 Κύριος kurios (9) kurious is the NT representative of Heb. Jehovah

(Translated Lord)

Also Θεός, / The·os′ says this in Strongs

#2316 a deity

(Translated God)

Thanks for the great thread..
I just sourced it

www.belowtopsecret.com...

Are you aware of the Catholic Church's decision to remove YHWH from its writings songs and such?

check it out

I really enjoyed this post! Flag for you. Very interesting read!

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Oh and who could forget the conversation in that movie

Professor Henry Jones: The Word of God.

Marcus Brody: No, Henry. Try not to talk.

Professor Henry Jones: The Name of God.

Indiana Jones: The Name of God... Jehovah.

Professor Henry Jones: But in the Latin alphabet, "Jehovah" begins with an "I".

Indiana Jones: J-... [he steps on the "J" and almost falls to his death; he scrambles back up]

Indiana Jones: Oh, *idiot*! In Latin Jehovah begins with an "I"!

Latin-Iehova: (1428 AD)

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I just wanted to add this to this thread.

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I also want to add this, what was funny was the person originally quoting this link was trying to disprove the point I was making, and he actually unwittingly just helped me to make my point even stronger.
By using a non-controversial word in Hebrew missing the first Hebrew character
that would the Y in Hebrew or J in English.

Hebrew To English

It doesn't get any clearer than than this.