In last week’s Watch Tower Wednesday on the Facebook page we saw the International Bible Students of Charles Russell's day became, in 1931, Jehovah's Witnesses. This was under the leadership of Joseph Rutherford, although many groups of International Bible students stayed faithful to Russell, and have survived until today. Jehovah's Witnesses, on their website, address this question of God's name and justify the change, making several main points:
Jehovah is the name God gives himself in Isaiah 42:8 and Exodus 3:15.
Jesus calls us to 'sanctify' God's name In Matthew 6:9
Joel tells us our salvation is in God's name Joel 2:32
God's name reveals his character
But is that name Jehovah? Did Joseph Rutherford create more questions than answers for subsequent generations of Jehovah's Witnesses in his determination to give his followers their distinct identity, as opposed to the simpler name of International Bible students?
A Lively Discussion
A lively discussion ensued on the Facebook page:
Bavesh Roger wrote, ‘ Funny that they cite Matthew 6:9 to prove their point, but the same verse actually exposes the heresy of the Watchtower. In this verse, Jesus teaches the disciples to address God as Father, not Jehovah or Yahweh.’ We saw this in the website article, The Name: It Isn’t Jehovah.
Bavesh continues, ‘ In fact, right from verse one Jesus addresses God as Father multiple times even in the NWT. If He had come to manifest the name Jehovah or Yahweh, He would have referred to God by this name on every occasion. But He did not mention it even when He prayed directly to God (John 17), not even in the NWT.’
‘Moreover,’ he goes on, ‘the name that was the focus of the apostles’ preaching and teaching was the name Jesus, not the name Jehovah. The gospels and the book of Acts give examples of disciples performing miracles in the name of Jesus (Mark 16:17-18, Luke 9:49, 10:17, Acts 16:18). In Eph. 1:21-22 and Phil. 2:9-10, Paul explains how highly exalted is the name Jesus, while Peter in Acts 4:12 says that there is salvation in no other name but in the name of Jesus.’
Barry Amor raised the following points:
Christians are called to be Christ's witnesses, not Jehovah's (Acts 1 v 8)
God gave Himself a name but it wasn't 'Jehovah'. That word didn't exist until the 13th Century (see below).
God's 'name' that we are sanctify is not a word like 'Jehovah'; it's who He is - might, Majesty, power, mercy etc. (see his final point below)
Did Joel mean in Joel2 v 32 that we should just use God's name and we would be saved? I doubt it. Is He someone we conjure up using His name like some demon?
Acts 4 v 12 tells us that it is only Jesus' name that saves us. Rom 10 v 12 tells us that it is the 'Lords' name we should call upon - the 'Lord' being Jesus in that passage.
Finally, Barry writes, ‘How does the word 'Jehovah' reveal God's character? It's a made up name mixing the consonants of the tetragrammaton (ish) with the vowels of adonai (Lord). As your picture shows, the word 'Jehovah' started out as Iehovah as the letter 'J' did not exist in its own right until sometime in the 13th-14th centuries.’
Abjad
These are all great comment and very insightful. It is further interesting that ancient Hebrew writing had no vowels, and is known today as an ‘abjad.’ This is a word coined in the 1990s by Peter T Daniels to describe an alphabet with no vowels. There are a number of abjads in the world, Arabic being one other example. Later scribes copying abjads devised ways of introducing marks, or accents, to indicate how a word might be pronounce.
When Jewish scholars and copyists added these accents, or vowel points, to the Hebrew text some centuries ago, the vowels of Adonai (Lord) were given to YHWH. This gives us YAHOWA, the Latin making Y into J, the W into V giving us Jehovah.
Tyndale
The picture at the head of this post is taken from the Watch Tower article, and they publish it thinking it makes their point for them. After all, if one of the greatest Bible translators of history uses the name who are we to dispute?
It is from Tyndale’s translation of Exodus, chapter 34:
‘Thrice in a year shall all your men children appear before the Lord Jehovah God of Israel: for I will cast out the nations before thee and will enlarge thy coasts, so that no man shall desire thy and, while thou goest up to appear before the face of the Lord thy God, thrice in the year.’ (vv 23,24)
Two points stand out about Tyndale’s translation:
His use of ‘Jehovah’ would have reflected the convention of the day and does not indicate it is actually the name of God. As we have seen, ‘Jehovah’ is a made up name comprising both Hebrew and Greek letters. It cannot have any historical or linguistic significance beyond what we already understand since it is an invention.
It is significant that later in the text Tyndale follows another convention familiar enough to modern Bible scholars; he writes, ‘...while thou goest up to appear before the face of the Lord thy God, thrice in the year.’ Here Tyndale is substituting ‘Lord’ for the Tetragrammaton, and not even using all capitals. Yet, the New World Translation gives, ‘...while you are going up to see the face of Jehovah your God three times a year.’
Conclusion
So, It seems reasonable to say Tyndale followed the convention of his day in using ‘Jehovah,’ which has no real significance for our discussion, and he followed the convention we have up to the present time of substituting ‘Lord’ for the name of God. In our website article, The Name: It Isn’t Jehovah, we discover Jehovah’s Witnesses know this, yet blindly follow the organisation rather than doing what we are doing and following the evidence.
‘...let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you executed on a stake but whom God raised up from the dead, by means of him this man stands here healthy in front of you. This is the stone the builders treated as of no account that has become the chief cornerstone. Furthermore, there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.’ (Acts 4:10-12, NWT)
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