An article arguing that "Jehovah" is not the true Name of God has been published at Brannon Howse's Worldview Weekend website, and even with the disclaimer that not all opinions expressed there are shared by the web hosts it seems to me that this is the sort of material that a watchman ministry like Howse's should be watching instead of giving it publicity.
This article about the name "Jehovah" has all the same earmarks as the "scholarship" behind all the new Bibles since Westcott and Hort: an implicit denigration of the work of the King James translators and an appeal to "scholarship" -- in most cases a highly questionable standard of scholarship too -- as of far greater concern than the needs of the Christian who reads the Bible.
There is nothing wrong with "Jehovah." The article denigrates the name as a "nonsense" word but in fact it is simply the original Hebrew four-letter name, or Tetragrammaton ("JHVH"), with vowels added to make it pronounceable, and the argument that the vowels used in the English Bibles were the wrong ones is just pedantic and inconsequential. Nobody KNOWS what the original vowels were and there is a decent argument in favor of those chosen for "Jehovah."
But primarily the problem is that this pursuit of the "authentic" Name of God is a conceit of modern scholarship that feeds all the wrong concerns. The Name "Jesus" is also not "authentic" if what you will only accept as authentic is the original Hebrew Name, Yeshua, nor are any of the English names for the disciples or other famous characters of the Bible. When you translate a term from one language to another it necessarily changes. If you move to a foreign country your own name is likely to be changed for the sake of the native speakers' ears.
And here's an important point: The article notes that the traditional pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was lost after the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 70 AD. That fact ought to be a heads-up that God Himself was not concerned to preserve any supposedly "accurate" pronunciation of His Name: it was God Himself who brought about the destruction of the Temple to mark the reign of the Messiah who had come and replaced it.
It might also be noted that God's Name is really a MEANING, not a Hebrew term: It means "I AM that I AM." That can be said in English as well as in Hebrew.
We've had enough of "scholarly" disruptions of our English Bible since Westcott and Hort who were possibly influenced by Jesuits and in any case did their utmost to make the text less accessible to English-speaking people, or as Chris Pinto puts it, unrecognizable. Fiddling around with the Name of God really has no other objective than that. There is no need for all this prissy superstitious "accuracy" and all it does is introduce unnecessary difficulties into learning the Bible which the ordinary reader cannot benefit from. This is just one of the many wearisome ways the legacy of Westcott and Hort has interfered with God's word and the peace of God's people.
It also may be relevant to note that a concern with this sort of "accuracy" underlies the Hebrew Roots heresy.
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Hi,
ReplyDeleteThanks, Faith.
Dr. James E. Smith gives a bunch of old hackneyed arguments, combined with simply false accusations, long answered in the actual debate.
And you can tell Smith only did superficial checking when he gets two historical names mangled in one sentence:
"when it was introduced by Gatatinus; but was contested by Le Mercier, J. Drusius, and L. Copellus"
James E. Smith is actually trying to refer to these two men:
Petrus Galatinus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Colonna_Galatino
Louis Capell (or Capellus)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Cappel
Clearly, Smith actually never checked his Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842) source:
A Hebrew and English lexicon of the Old Testament: (1898)
http://books.google.com/books?id=p1BiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA218
Which was extensively edited by Brown, Driver, Briggs, and the note itself was not Gesenius, but Charles Augustus Briggs (1841-1913). A quick check of the 1832 edition of Gessenius shows no such reference. http://books.google.com/books?id=OXxFAAAAcAAJ (Just to help acquit Gesenius of the blunder.) Somehow Smith mangled the note from
Rotherdam's Emphasized Bible
http://books.google.com/books?id=6Hs8It79excC&pg=PA24
Ironically, the Galatinus canard was refuted long ago, much of the history is given in the 1908 paper, which was written specifically to refute the Briggs error.:
The American Journal of Theology Volume 12
Notes on the name of YHVH (1908)
Professor George F. Moore - p. 34-53
http://books.google.com/books?id=wUE9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA34
And the refutation of this error of falsely accusing Galatinus as the origin of the name "Jehovah" is covered just about everywhere, including posts on the b-hebrew forum. I believe that for scholarly purposes, Moore's paper is sufficient, although you could go earlier to writers like John Gill. George Moore puts special emphasis on the refutation writings of:
Joseph de Voison (?–1685)
http://words.fromoldbooks.org/Chalmers-Biography/uv/voisin-joseph-de.html
The George Moore article has a wealth of information on the topic.
Shalom,
Steven Avery
Bayside, NY
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteApparently the comment feature is malfunctioning. Oh well, the message got through. And thanks for again favoring my blog with your scholarly knowledge.
I don't understand why your own blog hasn't taken off, you obviously have more knowledge than most of us who try to follow this topic.
Another thought, Steven. I probably won't get to your links but really would like to know your opinion based ojn that information -- what is the scholarly defense of "Jehovah" as you understand it?
ReplyDeleteHi Faith,
ReplyDeleteThe defense has many elements, Hebraic (including "as it is written" and the theophoric names) and Karaite understanding as I remember hearing the lecture in Jerusalem by Nehemiah Gordon, the ECW, the Reformation Bible analysis, the paganism of yahweh, the grammatical, the 'facts on the ground' in the Masoretic Text and more, not excluding, ultimately, the simple facts of providential preservation.
When I was unsure about the AV accuracy, this was a big issue for me, as I used to question if the AV could really be God's pure word if it did not have Yeshua, etc.
So I will try to do a review of the research material and post a bit on it within a week, at the very least some of the better bibliography sources.
Steven
The Tetragrammaton is shown in three different Codex: The Leningrad, The Aleppo and the Cairo. replete with the vowel points. I recommend the book by Keith johnson, 'His Hallowed Name revealed which covers the subject. Also the article, on the Internet, 'Pronunciation of the Name' by Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew on the subject. Then the book by John Gill, 'A Dissertation Concerning The Antiquity of the The Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points, and Accents' on Amazon (old English spellings) and the Internet (Modern spellings)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Derek. I gather you are supporting the argument in favor of Jehovah. You and Steve Avery do refer to the same source.
ReplyDelete