|| What was God's name? YHWH? Yahweh? Jehovah? || By | Theology bites
|| What was God's name?
YHWH? Yahweh? Jehovah? ||
By Ibn Anwar
Christians claim that the so-called tetragrammaton YHWH (yod hey vav hey) is the proper and one true name of God in the Bible. The problems with that claim are many. One of the greatest of the difficulties that come with claiming that YHWH is God's proper name is that it is unpronounceable. As Hebrew was written with only consonants before the much later invention of vowels, there is no way to know the precise and exact way by which the four consonants are to be pronounced together without the aid of tradition through memorisation, i.e., the manner by which to read words through oral learning that is handed down from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, the tradition did not survive to the Middle Ages and as a result, Jews and Christians completely lost the knowledge on how to say the letters as a single item correctly. How can a name be a name if it cannot be pronounced? The name is, therefore, for all intents and purposes, lost to history. Commonly, two pronunciations are favourites among Christians: Jehovah and Yahweh. The former is particularly popular among Jehovah's Witnesses while the latter is commonly used by Protestants and Catholics. They are, however, completely man made and have no foundation in history. Although the Jehovah's Witnesses use 'Jehovah' as preferred pronunciation for the tetragrammaton, they, nevertheless, recognise that the correct pronunciation has long disappeared:
“But especially after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the correct pronunciation gradually came to be lost.”[1]
Christian author Donald Louis Giddens writes:
“JHWH - the Jewish scribes wrote Adonay or Lord every time they came to this sacred Name of God. No one knows how to pronounce it, nor do they know the vowels...”[2]
Affirming the above, Steven Ortlepp writes:
“The correct pronunciation of the name were lost from Jewish tradition some time during the Middle Ages; late in the period of the Second Temple the name had come to be regarded as unspeakably holy and therefore unsuitable for public reading, although it continued to be used privately.”[3]
The Cambridge Bible Commentary says:
“There came a time when it was felt that the name was too sacred to pronounce, so another word, 'Adonai' (my Lord), was spoken instead and the original pronunciation of YHWH was lost.”[4]
Since Christians and Jews can no longer utter the alleged name because they have completely lost its actual pronunciation, there is really little point in pushing for the four-letter word. If it is a name that God desires to be regarded by, then He would not have caused the entire population of Christians and Jews to experience mass amnesia that they totally forget how to say that name. The very fact that the name is no longer extant in human speech means that it is no longer relevant.
Notes:
[1] - n.d. (1964). The Watchtower, Volume 85. Pennsylvania: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. p. 422
[2] - Giddens, D. L. (2007). Jesus in Genesis: A Study Course. n.d.: G.E.M. Books. p. 203
[3] - Ortlepp, S. (2011). Pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton: A Historico-Linguistic Approach. n.d.: Lulu. p. 16
[4] - Lace, O. J. (1972). Understanding the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 115
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Tags: #Christianity #God
