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Hi,
Trinitarians often claim that Jesus never once used the name of YHWH and nor is the name used afterward because “Jesus is YHWH”.
Others say that YHWH appears hundreds of times in the New Testament.
Can anyone give me a reliable source to read about YHWH in the New Testament?
It doesn't make any sense that Jesus would quote entire sentences but omit the name (i.e Deuteronomy 6:4-5//Mark 12:29-30, Deuteronomy 6:13//Luke 4:8, etc). Because scholars have omitted the name of YHWH in the entire Old Testament, it seems probable that the same was done in the New Testament to cut ties with Judaism?
Nonetheless, an accurate source would be really helpful!
Quote (jbl @ Feb. 28 2006,05:16) Hi, Trinitarians often claim that Jesus never once used the name of YHWH and nor is the name used afterward because “Jesus is YHWH”.
Others say that YHWH appears hundreds of times in the New Testament.
Can anyone give me a reliable source to read about YHWH in the New Testament?
It doesn't make any sense that Jesus would quote entire sentences but omit the name (i.e Deuteronomy 6:4-5//Mark 12:29-30, Deuteronomy 6:13//Luke 4:8, etc). Because scholars have omitted the name of YHWH in the entire Old Testament, it seems probable that the same was done in the New Testament to cut ties with Judaism?
Nonetheless, an accurate source would be really helpful!
Hello JBL,I haven't had time to check out the scriptures that you posted and am a bit sleepy from having come in from work, but I do hope you find these helpful:
Check out quotations in the New Testament that Jesus cites from the Old. It may say “Lord” in the Greek NT but reference to the OT would often show it to speak of YHWH… meaning that he himself cannot be YHWH.
An example off the top of my head would be Luke 4 (?19) when Jesus opens the book of Isaiah and begins to read:
The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to preach….
Cross reference that to Isaiah 61 and you'll find the original text that he read indicating that the “Lord” is YHWH. The Spirit of YHWH did anoint him…. (and Eliyah you have a point, if you're reading this. I need help though!)
Similarly, during the times of temptation in the wilderness …. I believe that when Jesus says to satan, “it is written, 'thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God…'” that a cross reference to Exodus would reveal the Lord to be YHWH. And so forth and so on.
Also I recommend the thread ?Who is YHWH? I think is the title. I started it some months ago. It may give further insight.
Blessings.
The shortened, poetic form of the divine name most likely does appear in YOUR Bible.
Manuscripts of the book of Revelation have God’s name in its abbreviated form, “Jah,” (in the word “Hallelujah”). But apart from that, no ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God’s name in full.Does that mean that the name should not be there? That would be surprising in view of the fact that Jesus’ followers recognized the importance of God’s name, and Jesus taught us to pray for God’s name to be sanctified.
Remember that the manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures that we possess today are not the originals. The actual books written by Matthew, Luke and the other Bible writers were well used and quickly wore out. Hence, copies were made, and when those wore out, further copies were made of those copies.
There are thousands of copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures in existence today, but most of them were made during or after the fourth century of our Common Era. This suggests a possibility: Did something happen to the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures before the fourth century that resulted in the omission of God’s name? The facts prove that something did.
We can be sure that the apostle Matthew included God’s name in his Gospel. Why? Because he wrote it originally in Hebrew. In the fourth century, Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate, reported: “Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language . . . Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea.”
Since Matthew wrote in Hebrew, it is inconceivable that he did not use God’s name, especially when quoting from parts of the “Old Testament” that contained the name. . However, other writers of the second part of the Bible wrote for a worldwide audience in the international language of that time, Greek. Hence, they did not quote from the original Hebrew writings but from the Septuagint Greek version. And even Matthew’s Gospel was eventually translated into Greek. Would God’s name have appeared in these Greek writings?
Well, some very old fragments of the Septuagint Version that actually existed in Jesus’ day have survived down to our day, and it is noteworthy that the personal name of God appeared in them. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Volume 2, page 512) says: “Recent textual discoveries cast doubt on the idea that the compilers of the LXX [Septuagint] translated the tetragrammaton YHWH by kyrios. The oldest LXX MSS (fragments) now available to us have the tetragrammaton written in Heb[rew] characters in the G[ree]k text. This custom was retained by later Jewish translators of the O[ld] T[estament] in the first centuries A.D.” Therefore, whether Jesus and his disciples read the Scriptures in Hebrew or Greek, they would come across the divine name.
Thus, Professor George Howard, of the University of Georgia, U.S.A., made this comment: “When the Septuagint which the New Testament church used and quoted contained the Hebrew form of the divine name, the New Testament writers no doubt included the Tetragrammaton in their quotations.” (Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978, page 14)
What authority would they have had to do otherwise?God’s name remained in Greek translations of the “Old Testament” for a while longer. In the first half of the second century C.E., the Jewish proselyte Aquila made a new translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, and in this he represented God’s name by the Tetragrammaton in ancient Hebrew characters. In the third century, Origen wrote: “And in the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters, yet not in today’s Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones.”
Even in the fourth century, Jerome writes in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings: “And we find the name of God, the Tetragrammaton [
?], in certain Greek volumes even to this day expressed in ancient letters.”By this time, however, the apostasy foretold by Jesus had taken shape, and the name, although appearing in manuscripts, was used less and less. (Matthew 13:24-30; Acts 20:29, 30) Eventually, many readers did not even recognize what it was and Jerome reports that in his time “certain ignorant ones, because of the similarity of the characters, when they would find [the Tetragrammaton] in Greek books, were accustomed to read
?.”In later copies of the Septuagint, God’s name was removed and words like “God” (The·os´) and “Lord” (Ky´ri·os) were substituted. We know that this happened because we have early fragments of the Septuagint where God’s name was included and later copies of those same parts of the Septuagint where God’s name has been removed.
The same thing occurred in the “New Testament,” or Christian Greek Scriptures. Professor George Howard goes on to say:: “When the Hebrew form for the divine name was eliminated in favor of Greek substitutes in the Septuagint, it was eliminated also from the New Testament quotations of the Septuagint. . . . Before long the divine name was lost to the Gentile church except insofar as it was reflected in the contracted surrogates or remembered by scholars.”Hence, while Jews refused to pronounce God’s name, the apostate Christian church managed to remove it completely from Greek language manuscripts of both parts of the Bible, as well as from other language versions.
Quote It doesn't make any sense that Jesus would quote entire sentences but omit the name (i.e Deuteronomy 6:4-5//Mark 12:29-30, Deuteronomy 6:13//Luke 4:8, etc).
Right, Jesus would not cut his Father's name from quotations about him. That doesn't make sense, does it?During the time when the returned exiles used adonai (lord) instead of YHWH, they believed saying the name YHWH was blasphemy (at least that's the common thought). If that's true, the moment Jesus would have said YHWH would've resulted in an immediate accusation, but there is none to be found.
Could it have been possible that he “bit the bullet” and simply said “lord” and “father?” Samuel and Moses were lenient for hard hearts in the OT.
The message was (and is) the important part, no?
Hi,
The tetragrammaton is not pronounceable.
It is a shortened version of words meaning “I Am Who Am”
Adding vowels to the consonants to make it seem like a normal word is a human addition.
To thus insist on the use of that humanly constructed fabrication surely is nonsense?Interesting. I've never thought of that before, that there would have been an accusation.
JOHN 17:6
““I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world.
Would Jesus have succumb to human tradition based on wrong misplaced superstitious fears? Or would he have told everyone the truth?Would not he have felt the same love for his Father's name as expressed in this scripture?
PSALM 22:22
“I will declare your name to my brothers; In the middle of the congregation I shall praise you.”HEBREWS 2:12
“as he says: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the middle of [the] congregation I will praise you with song.””And then there's this scripture:
ACTS 15:14
“Sym´e·on has related thoroughly how God for the first time turned his attention to the nations to take out of them a people for his name.”Quote The message was (and is) the important part, no? Yes, but to remove God's name is to distort the message, no? God's inspired Word contains the name 7000 times–more times than ALL OF HIS TITLES PUT TOGETHER. More times than the word God, Lord, Father, Almighty, Creator, etc, PUT TOGETHER.
Quote The tetragrammaton is not pronounceable.
Are you saying the jews didn't pronounce God's name?
Or are you saying that it is not pronounceable?
And why are you saying this? On what is it based?Hi david,
Show me evidence that the Jews pronounced God's Name. When Jesus told us about the Name of the Father he was telling us about the Father. The Name represents the Person.Quote (Nick Hassan @ June 14 2006,07:59) Hi david,
Show me evidence that the Jews pronounced God's Name. When Jesus told us about the Name of the Father he was telling us about the Father. The Name represents the Person.
Hi Nick
You are exactly right! That is why it is so offensive when people just throw around supposed translations of the name as if it is a “Common Thing” Jesus said “Hallowed be thy name” and yet some want to dissect it, twist it and argue over it.
I know you don't adhere to Islam but the fact is that is why in Islam, God is referred to as “The God” emphasizing the only one worthy of such a title/name
The tetragrammaton is the name of “The God”
The Name represents the Person
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