History of use of Yaweh?

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jmd86004

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What is the Judeo-Christian history of the use of the name of God? The OT regularly uses God's name but I am not sure if it was used in the same manner during Christ's time and in the history of the Christian church. So, the first question is history of how His name was used. The second question is why do we not use it now and what are the implications of our use of the generic word god spelled with a capital letter G?
 

Carrye

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jmd86004 said:
What is the Judeo-Christian history of the use of the name of God? The OT regularly uses God's name but I am not sure if it was used in the same manner during Christ's time and in the history of the Christian church.
The OT uses Yahweh, and often uses LORD (capitalized) as well. It seems as though in the NT, God begins being referred to in His Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

what are the implications of our use of the generic word god spelled with a capital letter G?
God, with a capital G, refers to the one triune God. god, small g, can be used in polytheistic religions - the Greeks and Romans used this when referring to their gods.
 
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jmd86004

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clskinner said:
The OT uses Yahweh, and often uses LORD (capitalized) as well. It seems as though in the NT, God begins being referred to in His Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.


God, with a capital G, refers to the one triune God. god, small g, can be used in polytheistic religions - the Greeks and Romans used this when referring to their gods.
Do you know of any historical or biblical support for the doctrine of the Trinity being the reason for the change?
 
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Carrye

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I don't know of historical or biblical support, but it seems as though logic would prove enough cause for this change. God in His divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is one (the doctrine of the Trinity). There is no need to speak of gods when there is but one God. This change in reference also changes the use of language; it seems as though this change from many "little g's" to one "big G" would naturally and logically follow from the doctrine of the Trinity.
 
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jmd86004 said:
What is the Judeo-Christian history of the use of the name of God? The OT regularly uses God's name but I am not sure if it was used in the same manner during Christ's time and in the history of the Christian church. So, the first question is history of how His name was used. The second question is why do we not use it now and what are the implications of our use of the generic word god spelled with a capital letter G?

יהוה is translated as "LORD" (all in caps) in most Biblical translations. It is the personal name of God as we see in Isaiah 42:8:

I am יהוה, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to engraved images.

When Moses saw the burning bush in Exodus 3:14 we see:

God said to Moses, “אהיה אשר אהיה,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: “יהוה has sent me to you.”

Pronounced in Hebrew, he said to Moses first "Ehyeh asher ehyeh." אהיה /ehyeh/ is the future 1st person singular of the verb "to be" in Hebrew (היה), and אשר /asher/ means "that" or "who" and is like the Aramaic genitive particle דּ dolath when applied as a prefix to a verb. So God literally said to Moses:

"I will be who I will be."

In other words, "I am who I am" is a sloppy mistranslation.

God then says to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: “יהוה has sent me to you.”

Now יהוהs a conundrum. There is no Hebrew verb form that matches it. It comes close to the future 3rd person singular יהיה /yehyoh/, but the third consonant is a ו not a י.

I have a theory that יהוה is actually Aramaic, or an Aramaic dialect of Hebrew, not true Hebrew, as it is identical to the future 3rd person singular of the Old Aramaic verb "to be" הוא (hwâ), taking into account the ה/א rule between Aramaic and Hebrew (Hebrew uses terminal ה's where Aramaic uses terminal א's): יהוה vs יהוא both of which are pronounced identically.

This would make יהוה out to mean "He will be" which makes perfect sense.

"I will be who I will be, so tell them that 'He will be' sent you."

There are many speculations as to how it is pronounced, but all seem to fall short due to the fact that we just don't know. :) If it follows the Aramaic pronunciation, there would be an "eh" sound after the first י and a deep "ah" sound after the ו.

But then again, that's just a theory :)

God also has many titles which are usually translated as "God.":

אלהים - /'elohim/ or "Mighty Ones"
אלוה - /'eloah/ or "Mighty One"
אל - /'el/ or "Mighty" or "Mighty One"

And then there are compound titles (I've translated the three above as "God"):

אל שעדי - /'el sha`dai/ or "God Most High"
יהוה צבאות - /YHWH tsva'ot/ or "YHWH of Hosts" (but Hosts in the sense of army ranks)
etc.

But, יהוה YHWH is his personal name.

In New Testament times, there was a Jewish convention to prevent pronouncing this name, and any of the titles properly due to the paranoia of taking it in vain. We then get such words as:

השם - /hashem/ or "The Name" in reference to the tetragrammation.
אד×*י - /'adonai/ or "My Lord"

And combinations to mix syllables up:

אדשם - /'adoshem/ a combination of אד×*י and השם
אלכים - /'elakim/ a combination of אלהים and I have no idea :)

Jesus was very fond of using the Aramaic אלהא /'alâhâ'/ (the equivalent of אלהים /elohim/) and one that was less used only in prayer: אבא /'abâ'/ or "father" but more in the sense of "dad" (you'd usually call your father גברא /gavrâ'/ or "man/sir" as a sign of respect).

There are also some theories concerning the use of the Aramaic words מרא /mârâ'/ and מריא /mârya'/ which both mean "Lord," but some argue that מריא /mârya'/ is short for מר יהוה /mâr YHWH/ or "Lord YHWH".

Unfortunately, in the Greek texts, all we have for God's name are two words: θεος /theos/ and κυριος /kurios/ which mean "God" and "Lord" respectively. Both references to יהוה /YHWH/ and אד×*י /'adonai/ fall translated as κυριος /kurios/, so there is no way to tell them apart in the Greek texts.

Hope this helps!

שלמא
-Steve-o
 
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Crazy Liz

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Can anyone read what Steve typed in non-English letters?

I wonder how much the OP has to do with the commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain." I know that Jews never pronounce the tetragrammaton (the 4 Hebrew letters corresponding to YHWH) and it's been so long since anyone pronounced it in Hebrew that no one today knows how it would have ben pronounced. I don't know when the Jews stopped pronouncing it, but the article I linked above discusses manuscript clues indicating this happened about the time of the Babylonian captivity.

I recommend the article, which seems to come from quite a credible source. Scholars might not be unanimous about it, but since the article appears in a Jewish encyclopedia, I'm sure it represents at least a respectable scholarly opinion.
 
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jmd86004

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clskinner said:
I don't know of historical or biblical support, but it seems as though logic would prove enough cause for this change. God in His divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is one (the doctrine of the Trinity). There is no need to speak of gods when there is but one God. This change in reference also changes the use of language; it seems as though this change from many "little g's" to one "big G" would naturally and logically follow from the doctrine of the Trinity.
I don't get how your argument goes. There was always only one God taught throughout OT and NT, so I am not following you on what you are calling the "change in reference" or when the change from "little g's" to one "big G" happened. Sorry if I seem kind of thick.
 
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Carrye

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What I meant by "change in reference" was the change from polytheistic religions to monothestic ones. The very nature of that change, from many (thus small gs) to one (big G), accounts for the change in grammar.

As far as the OT/NT point, I was noting that God was really only referred to explicitly as the Father in the OT, while the NT contains accounts of the Son and Holy Spirit as well. It was just an observation about the development of our understanding of God through revelation. This observation was in answer to the first question in your OP (how God's name is used throughout history).

I hope this clarifies what I was thinking a little.
 
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jmd86004

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Liz,
Your reference was very helpful in understanding the history of the use of YHWH. (It is now on my Favorites list.) Thanks.

So, on to the second half of my question: does anyone think that our non-use of YHWH and common usage of the generic word "god" have any implications? Would it be useful for us to use His name YHWH in order to distinguish Him in our language? The Jews seemed to be concerned that this name would be spoken in vain, so they used it rarely. We live in a society in which many use the word god with little or no thought on what they are really saying. Maybe rather than expecting them to change, should we change our language to force distinction.

I know my thinking is only half-baked at this moment, so I was hoping for some input to firm it up.

Thanks.
 
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mawuvi

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christianbeginning said:
honestly, how can god have a name, especially a name like that??
Huh? You are joking right? With a viewpoint like that you would be creating God in YOUR image next.

Yes God has a name and it is so important to him that the Bible talks of SEVERE punishment for those that shame God's name or use his name in vain

Furthermore have you heard people speak in tongues? It sounds like babble but that is the language of Angels according to the Bible. Your name and language sounds okay to you because you understand it but to someone else who does not understand a word of English your name and language would sound funny.
 
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christian-only

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jmd86004 said:
What is the Judeo-Christian history of the use of the name of God? The OT regularly uses God's name but I am not sure if it was used in the same manner during Christ's time and in the history of the Christian church. So, the first question is history of how His name was used. The second question is why do we not use it now and what are the implications of our use of the generic word god spelled with a capital letter G?

The word Yahweh was not in use until the 1800s when scholars found some worthless Gnostic manuscripts in an Egyptian trashdump and put all their faith in them. As for the use of the word God, it's just the English equivalent of the Greek theos used in the New Testament. Until the 1800s, the Hebrew text had the tetragrammaton pointed Jehovah (or Yehovah), but the Jews normally said Adonai rather than Jehovah, just as we say LORD, and just as Kurios was used in Greek.
 
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christianbeginning

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Huh? You are joking right? With a viewpoint like that you would be creating God in YOUR image next.

Yes God has a name and it is so important to him that the Bible talks of SEVERE punishment for those that shame God's name or use his name in vain

Furthermore have you heard people speak in tongues? It sounds like babble but that is the language of Angels according to the Bible. Your name and language sounds okay to you because you understand it but to someone else who does not understand a word of English your name and language would sound funny.


What I'm saying is that it seems pretty silly to think that God has a proper name like human beings, or pets for that matter. A proper name seems way to limited and limiting to God.

I think it's an instance of getting things wrong.
 
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Jaywalk

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jmd86004 said:
What is the Judeo-Christian history of the use of the name of God? The OT regularly uses God's name but I am not sure if it was used in the same manner during Christ's time and in the history of the Christian church.

Okay. Here's more info on the subject than you wanted:

By the time of Christ the Talmud's interpretation of scripture predominated in Jewish practice. Part of the philosophy in the Talmud was to "build a fence around the law". In other words, a set of secondary rules were set up to prevent breaking the "real" rules of the Torah. The Torah said that you were not to use the name of the Lord in vain, so the Talmudic solution was not to use the name of the Lord at all. Jews living in the time of Jesus would not have spoken the name of God out loud.

This caused a problem when reading scripture aloud, since the name of the Lord was all over the place. The solution was to read "Adonai" (Lord) every place that said "Yahweh". Now in Hebrew, the vowels weren't really part of the text, just a set of dots around the words that served to remind the people (who didn't usually speak Hebrew as an everyday language) how to pronounce them. As a reminder to say "Adonai" instead of "Yahweh", the consonants for "Adonai" were put in the margins and the vowel points were put around "Yahweh". We really aren't 100% sure what the vowel points for Yahweh were, that's really just a scholar's best guess. Many English translations standardized on translating the name by spelling "Lord" with all capital letters.

In some philosophies, the unpronounceable "YHWH" (also called the "Tetragrammaton" or "four letters") was thought to have mysterious mystical properties and was used as part of magical formulas. And a few centuries later, some bonehead tried to read the vowels from Adonai (Ah-oh-ah) with the consonants of "YHWH" and thought that the "real" name of God should be pronounced "Yahowah", later Anglicized to "Jehovah".

One last note: Many scholars believe that the name itself is some kind of construct of the Hebrew verb "to be" (hiyah) and that it is a reference to when God told Moses to tell the people that "I Am" sent him, so the name of God could be construed as "He Who Is".

Now aren't you sorry you asked? :D
 
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