HaShem - Yahweh or Jehovah?

i didn't mean that it doesn't matter at all. i meant that it doesn't matter to my point.

Dear Arachnophilia;

quote:

---

psalm 14 IS the earlier manuscript and that psalm 53 was put together later, and thus avoids using hashem. psalm 53 does not contain this name anywhere in the hebrew.

---

As I stated in my earlier posts, there are early Hebrew manuscripts that have the Tetragrammaton in Psalm 53, therefore the removal of the Name occurred after the book of Psalms was completed.

quote:

---

i've had this explained at length to me by a hebrew professor. i don't know much hebrew, but i know enough to understand that jehovah is a very incorrect rendering of the word.

---

Of course it is, welcome to the English language, that is how things are unfortunately done. Of course just about every name in the Bible that in English that starts with a 'J' should start with a 'Y', but that decision has already been made long ago and we are stuck with it. Look at the name Jerusalem, it should start with a 'Y' do you think we would ever able to root out the current 'wrong' pronunciation and replaced it with a corrected one? Same thing with the name Jehovah, it is too well established and has the support of our Language's so called 'rules'.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Firebird;

quote:

---

How many such fragments exist, and has it been conclusively established that they are "mainstream" versions, rather than just reflecting the views of a particular sect or copyist?

---

There are at least 10 copies of the Septuagint that we have fragments of that use the Divine Name. From what I understand, they are considered mainstream and merely predate the later removal of the Tetragrammaton from the Septuagint. The Tetragrammaton in the earlier Septuagint was written in square Hebrew letters in the Greek text, it is understandable that after a period of time and copying, that later Greek speakers would tend to replace the unfamiliar Hebrew letters with something in Greek. [quote] inserting "Jehovah" in the NT on the assumption that Jesus would have quoted exactly, is still more than a translation. It is building in the beliefs of the translator, [/paste] Since we now know that the OT in use when the NT was written had the Tetragrammaton in it, and since the OT quoted from OT verses where the Name was used, use of the Name in those verses is not inserting or adding, it is restoring, it is putting back what was once there before it was removed by later copyists.Sincerely Yours: Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Buzsaw;

quote:

---

The name was never intended to be in the NT. Why? Because Jesus, for the first time in history taught that God should be addressed as "Father."

---

Isaiah 63:16 "O Jehovah, are our Father."
Deuteronomy 32:6 "Is it to Jehovah that YOU keep doing this way, O people stupid and not wise? Is he not your Father who has produced you, He who made you and proceeded to give you stability?"
Isaiah 63:16 "For you are our Father; although Abraham himself may not have known us and Israel himself may not recognize us, you, O Jehovah, are our Father."The Jews called Jehovah "father" because Israel was God's son.Exodus 4:22 " And you must say to Pharaoh, 'This is what Jehovah has said: "Israel is my son, my firstborn."So addressing God as "Father" was not introduced by Jesus and the name Jehovah is in the NT. When the Divine Name was taken out of the NT, they left in its use in its shortened form of "Jah" in the phrase Hallelujah which means "praise Jehovah" at Revelation 19:1. Some translations render this verse as Hallelujah, while others have praise Jehovah or praise the LORD, or something to that effect.-- American Standard
Revelation 19:1 After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong to our God:Now if Christians were now to call God Father rather then use his name, why does John use it? I can't imagine true followers of Jehovah and Jesus Christ not making frequent use of Jehovah's name any more than I can see them not using Jesus' name.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

show me.it's a WELL known fact that in the books of psalms, book two uses the name far less often than any other book. wrong again. let's look at other established english pronounciations:how do you say:
isaiah?
jeremiah?
obadiah?
zpehaniah?
zechariah?
nehemiah?guess where the -iah ending from? i would say that disregarding the case of elijah, english precendent has been set that it should be pronounced "yah" as in all of those names.and no, the decision was niether made long ago, nor are we stuck with it. as i pointed out, the use of that name has only spanned a period of about 300 years, and has since been updated in the vast majority of translations.

you realize you quoted the same verse twice? actually, israel was isaac's son. parentage in the bible is a way of showing approval. all the kings of israel were said to be begotten sons of god. notice the pronounciation, btw.also, the greek says allhlouia. notice it's spelling. -ia. in greek, what WE say as j would pronounced like an i, so god's name would be ia-something. nothice that BOTH the consonant AND the vowel are said different from je-something.did early christians use the name of the lord? maybe they did. allelouia is a good piece of evidence that they used at least the shortened from of the name.

Hello again, wmscott, . . . . I'm afraid that that for me there is still a lot of ground to cover before the second statement can be accepted as fact. A few questions I would ask are: Are the ten fragments all from Deuteronomy? Does the writing suggest a common author? Are there earlier fragments which do not use the Tetragrammaton? How is it established that there was a full OT version of which the fragments were a part, and that it was the accepted version? I guess the second OT should be NT. Do fragments with the Tetragrammaton exist for each insertion of "Jehovah" into the NT?And even if ALL the answers to these questions support the inclusion of the Tetragrammaton into the OT and there are no other reasons not to include it,then as I understand it:1. Arachnophilia's point that Jehovah is a mistranslation is still valid.2. Inserting "Jehovah" into the NT when the OT is neither translating (as it is not in the source) nor restoring (as there is no evidence that it ever was in the NT source). It is an addition based on belief. Whether or not you believe it probable or likely that Jesus would have used the Divine Name, it is still simply that, a belief.On reading this over, it sounds a bit argumentative. I'd just like to add that I have no bias against your religion and value my JW friends, but as I try to work out a "worldview' for myself, I do get frustrated at addiitional stumbling blocks, such as "translations" that are something different.regards, Lis

it is a fact in some respect. the hebrew tanakh has ALWAYS had the name of the lord in it. the hebrew copies of the bible at the time, the ones jesus would have read, certainly did contain the name. but did the septuagint? i doubt it. the aramaic targums? i don't know, but i think so. i actually agree with the JW on a few points, which i was supprised to notice. i just think the name is wrong.

Having studied with JWs for twelve months, I wouldn`t trust any conclusion they came up with. In spite of convincing them of the fallacy of a lot of points of their beliefs, the following week they would be on song again. And that figure of 25,000 sexual assaults just won`t go away.

Dear Arachnophilia;

quote:

---

show me.

---

Let me serve myself a hopefully small serving of crow. I checked my source only to discover that the small type footnote reference was not to a manuscript, but to a reference book;
Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, by C. D. Ginsburg, Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1966 reprint. , pp. 368, 369
which I can't find on the web and I will have to get through an interlibrary loan which normally takes 6 weeks. So in all honesty, I don't know what the use of the Divine Name in Psalms 53 in the NWT is based on, it could be an old manuscript fragment, but is more probably a text argument.We could and have been going round and round on the Jehovah /Yahweh argument without end. Opinions vary, you have yours and I have mine. In the end popular usage will decide which is the one to use.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Firebird;

quote:

---

Are the ten fragments all from Deuteronomy? Does the writing suggest a common author? Are there earlier fragments which do not use the Tetragrammaton? How is it established that there was a full OT version of which the fragments were a part, and that it was the accepted version?

---

The ten sets or groups of fragments are from various pasts of the OT and they have been found in different locations, they didn't all turn up in the bottom of one old chest or something like that. As far as I can find out, the fragments are from an earlier version of the Septuagint of which the biggest difference was that it had the Divine Name in Hebrew letters in the text. As Arachnophilia has already pointed out, we have been discussing the early Greek translation of the OT that was in common use in the first century, the original Hebrew version of the OT in the oldest most reliable manuscripts has the Divine Name and that has not been a question. We have just been arguing whether or not the Name should appear in the NT or in certain verses in the OT. To see the Divine Name for yourself in the OT, all you need to do is to walk over to your bookshelf and take down your copy of the old KJV and look up Psalms 83:18 "That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth." The Name appears four times in the old King James Bible, and also turns up on old coins, on old buildings and in old secular books. You can even find it the dictionary.

quote:

---

1. Arachnophilia's point that Jehovah is a mistranslation is still valid.

---

No, his point was that "Yahweh" which is the way hebrew speakers today pronounce the name is what we should use and that the English translation of "Jehovah" is based on errors. "Jehovah" is an accepted translation with a long history and when translating names the oldest most accepted version is the "correct" one, no matter how flawed. Our language is filled with distorted words from other languages, do we have to correct all of them too? All of the OT names that begin with a 'J' in Hebrew begin with a 'Y', the Yahweh argument would have us pronouncing everything in Hebrew.

quote:

---

2. Inserting "Jehovah" into the NT when the OT is neither translating (as it is not in the source) nor restoring (as there is no evidence that it ever was in the NT source). It is an addition based on belief. Whether or not you believe it probable or likely that Jesus would have used the Divine Name, it is still simply that, a belief.

---

I can't image Jesus not using his Father's name. Restoring God's name in the verses where NT writers quoted from OT verses which use the name, is just that, restoring. We know that the Name was removed, and we know where the NT quotes from where it is used in the OT, so we know at least some of the places where the Name was removed from. Restoring God's name to those verses in the NT makes sense, after all, the same sentence in the OT has it.The New World Translation is a VERY good translation. Here are a couple of links to a rating of the NWT.hector3000.future.easyspace.com is no longer available
hector3000.future.easyspace.com is no longer availableSincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

well, textually we KNOW that original version of psalm 53 did indeed contain the name of god. this is one of those cases in biblical literature that comes very close to being hard fact. we know this because we have psalm 14.my argument is simply that they originated from the same exact poem, but one was altered prior to it's inclusion in that particular book of psalms. that's not an outrageous claim, is it?

i disagree. why bother studying the bible at all if that your view? as human beings, we try to make progress, and come closer to understanding god. new insights into the bible are constantly being made. if we were stuck to understanding only what came before, and only used the oldest translations... well. we wouldn't be using translations at all.we'd all just have to learn hebrew. and then NONE of us would say "Jehovah," we'd all say "adonai." i mean, that IS the oldest and most accepted translation. is that a problem? the y/j problem is by far the most pronounced discrepency (pun intended). you say "Isaac" i say "Yitszak." not a big difference. abraham or ibrahim? nehemiah or nachemyah? jacob or ya'aqov? the unimportant names are really just pronounciations issues. we can let those slide, i think.but jehovah for yahweh? and jesus for yehowshua? those are pretty big distortions, especially considering that they are the two most important figures in the bible. should saying their names right matter? i can. it depends on his particular religious orientation, and how defiant he was of church. suppose i went into your nwt, and switched all the instances of "jehovah" with "yahweh" under the guise of restortion? that is after all what jesus would have been saying, right? and the original authors? why not restore it?the duty of a translator is to accurately render the text's literal meaning, and to properly convey its intent. we can't just go about replacing various godly titles with the name of god. if it's not what the text wrote, don't translate it. you're destroy evidence in support the idea that jesus would not have used god's name. the gospel authors are copying or quoting a document that contains oral quotations by jesus. had he been of the belief that god's name was not to be spoken, we would have said "adonai" in place of it, or the aramaic equivalent, when quoting scripture that contained the name. this would have been recorded, and translated into greek as "kurios." which is what the text says. it's not proof positive that jesus avoided the name, but does support the idea.follow my logic?if that's what happened, than saying jesus spoke the name of god is NOT accurately recording what happened, even if he was quoting scripture. judging from what i've read on here so far, it's not.but here are my impartial translation tests, which i've devised personally to test any copy of the bible i pick up for literal rendering capabilities in spite of dogma: (forgiving the "Jehovah" rendering for a minute)

quote:

---

Exodus 10:19

​

Then Jehovah made a shift to a very stiff west wind, and it carried the locusts away and drove them into the Red Sea.

---

literal rendering: sea of reeds. failed.

quote:

---

Genesis 6:2

​

then the sons of the [true] God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good-looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose.

---

literal rendering: sons of gods, or the gods. close, but fails on the insertion of the a word for dogmatic reasons. (haven't seen that one before!)

quote:

---

Leviticus 16:8

​

And Aaron must draw lots over the two goats, the one lot for Jehovah and the other lot for Azazel.

---

interesting. passed. (most translate as "scapegoat" incorrectly)now, i haven't read this translation, but those are just the three passages i flip to first to test a translation at a glance. after that, i read the rendering of psalm 23 to get a sense of how it handles poetry (does it put it verse, etc), and the nwt does alright at that. a real opinion can only be gathered by reading large sections at that and seeing how it renders ideas in modern english, but it did fail two of my tests, which alone is enough to make me think twice about it. to be fair, my current favourite edition (JPS) fails one of those, the sons of gods test. but it gets half points for the footnote.in summary, the NWT fails two tests, correctly renders the name of Azazel, understands hebrew poetry, but still incorrectly renders the name of god. so i would say that at first glance, it is a mediocre translation at best.

Dear Arachnophilia;

quote:

---

textually we KNOW that original version of psalm 53 did indeed contain the name of god. this is one of those cases in biblical literature that comes very close to being hard fact. we know this because we have psalm 14. my argument is simply that they originated from the same exact poem, but one was altered prior to it's inclusion in that particular book of psalms. that's not an outrageous claim, is it?

---

I agree with you on all points except for one, I believe that it was altered after inclusion rather than before. My logic on this is simple, the Bible writers were inspired, later copyists were not, removal of God's name would not have occurred under inspiration so it must have occurred later when being copied. As you said, we know it was removed, and I just can't see it being done under inspiration. Of course I know this argument carries no weight with anyone who doesn't believe that the Bible is inspired, but for those of us who do, it is solid.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Arachnophilia;

quote:

---

if we were stuck to understanding only what came before, and only used the oldest translations... well. we wouldn't be using translations at all. we'd all just have to learn hebrew. and then NONE of us would say "Jehovah," we'd all say "adonai." i mean, that IS the oldest and most accepted translation.

---

Now you are just being silly, I was referring to the English rule of names, using the most commonly used form which is normally the oldest and earliest form used. (in English of course) Also popular usage can change, with one form of a name replacing another as the most commonly known form of a name.

quote:

---

in summary, the NWT fails two tests, correctly renders the name of Azazel, understands hebrew poetry, but still incorrectly renders the name of god. so i would say that at first glance, it is a mediocre translation at best.

---

Well, you make some good points, the NWT certainly isn't perfect. 'Red Sea' instead of 'Sea of reeds' one maybe more correct, ('sea of reeds' is in the footnote by the way) but people are only going to recognize the other. On Genesis 6:2 the word 'true' is in brackets, so it hasn't been added to the text as part of the translation, also see the footnote. It is your test, but maybe you want to check the reference edition of NWT, the foot notes and references may make a difference in your test score.I will have to look into the JPS version. (What does JPS stand for?)Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson