Jehovah or Yahweh?

Written by Editor Monday, 28 June 2010 18:35 - Last Updated Sunday, 04 July 2010 22:03

This is a question that has side-tracked many Christians who are simply and sincerely trying to do the right thing.

The problem is that there is much one-sided misinformation out there about the name of God. Some people are even convincing folks that if you don't pronounce the name of God right, you are not saved. Those same teachers will be shocked one day when they stand before the throne of God to find out that not only did they get it wrong, but they may have actually been insulting the mighty God of the universe and Lord of Hosts when they called Him "Yahweh."

The confusion begins with the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language originally had no vowels and no indication of vowel sounds. God's name in the Bible was simply written YHVH or JHVH (called a "tetragrammaton"). Centuries later, Jewish scribes added marks to their texts to indicate vowel sounds. They rendered JHVH as "Yehovah" or the anglicized "Jehovah." This is the name you will find in all of the English Bibles before 1985, and in the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

But, despite God's promise to preserve His Word for us, men are constantly trying to find something new and sensational. What could be more sensational than to discover a brand new pronounciation for the very name of God?

To fabricate this new word for God, "Yahweh," scholars went to entirely non-biblical sources, including history, philology, and rationalism, making these sciences authoritative over the Bible.

Like most such modern "discoveries," the "Yahweh" word is based entirely upon assumptions, without one shred -- not one dot -- of evidence.

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Jehovah or Yahweh?
Written by Editor Monday, 28 June 2010 18:35 - Last Updated Sunday, 04 July 2010 22:03

Scholars discovered that one of the Elephantine Papyri from about 407 BC, a document written in Aramaic and found in Elephantine, Egypt, contained a word in which the first three letters of the Biblical name for God appear -- YHV -- in the context of a local temple to a deity by that name that functioned alongside a temple for the local ram-headed god, khnum. Based on grammatical assumptions, they assigned the pronunciation "YAHWEH" to these letters and equated that deity with the God of the Bible.

Of course, the only temple in existence at that time for the true God of the Bible was in Jerusalem, not Elephantine, so for them to equate the YAHWEH of Elephantine, Egypt, with the Jehovah of Jerusalem, was quite a leap indeed. Yet, whenever somebody uses the name "Yahweh" for God, they are equating the YHV whose temple was in Elephantine, Egypt, with the God of the Bible -- as insulting as that must be to our God!

This assumption, along with the assumption that this Egyptian literature was somehow more authentic and more authoritative than the preserved Word of God that Christians had used for a couple thousand years, lead these modern scholars to proclaim that God's name is not Jehovah, but "Yahweh."

To these unbelieving scholars, Jehovah, the almighty God of the universe, was nothing more than an offshoot of the local pagan deity, Yaho.

To justify the difference between what modern scholarship said and what the Bible said, they postulated that the Bible was simply wrong (of course!). According to them, well-meaning, reverent scribes over the centuries had substituted the vowel marks for the Hebrew word for lord, adonai, for the real ones in the word YHVH in order to prevent people from accidentally pronouncing God's name in a disrespectful manner.

However, what these same scholars neglect to mention is the fact that the vowel markings for a donai and Jehovah are not exactly the same. Their argument is just another baseless assumption used to prop up the fabrication of a new name for our God.

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Jehovah or Yahweh?
Written by Editor Monday, 28 June 2010 18:35 - Last Updated Sunday, 04 July 2010 22:03

Additionally, these scholars passed over the fact that the Bible word YHVH is a three-syllable word -- not a two-syllable word like the "YVH" of the Egyptian text.

Note that in English Bibles, only those from 1985 onward purvey the "Yahweh" pronunciation, while "Jehovah" is documented in ancient sources as far back as 277 BC.

Who is your God? Is He the almighty God of the Bible, Jehovah, or is he created by modern-day scholars based on a local pagan god?

Additional Reading: Jehovah, by Scott Jones Who is Yahweh? Jehovah or Yahweh?

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