The Significant Name of God (21)
Why Christianity often ignored The Name YaHUaH
André H. Roosma
21 June 2020 (NL original: 18 May 2020)
This article series is about the glorious Name of the God of the Bible,
 in
Paleo-Hebrew script, יהוה in the later
Aramaic-Hebrew square script. This glorious Name, Which occurs about 7,000
times in the Bible, can be transliterated as IAUA or YaHUaH.1
Earlier I have addressed the question of why the majority of rabbinic Judaism has consciously banished this glorious
Name since the return of the Jews from Babylon. This turned out to be
mainly based on fear, Babylonian syncretism and superstition.
But that does not explain why Christianity also ignored The Glorious
Name from early on. That started with the Greek manuscripts of the New
Testament that have been handed down to us. As in later versions of the
Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Tanakh - the
first part of the Bible), the glorious Name of God, YaHUaH,
has been replaced, everywhere in the Greek versions of the New Testament
that have been handed down to us, by the Greek Kurios (or sometimes by Theos). This custom of replacing
the divine name with a title was later adopted by most other Bible
translators, who, for example in English have opted for the replacement
‘LORD’.
The question arises: What happened to the glorious, personal Name of God in
Christianity in the early centuries? And more specifically: Why has
Christianity ignored the glorious, personal Name of God and usually not
chosen to keep this Name in the Biblical texts and – just like all
other names – to maintain it using transliteration (just replacing the Hebrew letters with our letters, or mimic the
pronunciation with our letters)? Why has the glorious, personal Name
of God in our Bibles been banned all these centuries and replaced in many
translations2 by a rather meaningless title as ‘Lord’?
I ask the question: Is it normal to hide the personal Name of the great
Auther and Main Character of a voluminous book like the Bible from His
book so that It would remain unknown or even be forgotten ?!
Last time I mentioned the Apostolic and Nicaea’s Creed. What could have
been more logical and natural to mention in a creed than the glorious
Personal Name of the One in Whom We Believe? Then everything would be
immediately clear, also towards other religions... However, that is not
what happened...
I will take you back to ancient history for another moment now.
The image of God of Plato, the Greeks, the Romans and rabbinic Judaism
In the previous article in this series I already mentioned that the Greek
philosopher Plato claimed that the supreme god and creator of heaven and earth
could not really be known and had no name. And that this vision has strongly
influenced the culture and the image of God within the Roman Empire. It also
had that influence on increasingly Hellenizing Judaism.
There is something else to add. During the Greek rule of the Jews (especially in the 2nd
century BC) it came so far that the Greeks wanted to banish the Jewish
faith. Nehemiah Gordon, a Karaite Jew,3 says that when the Greeks
fought the Jewish religion, they also prohibited the use of the glorious Name.
All this contributed to a sharp decrease in the use of the glorious Name
among Jews during those centuries.
The Septuagint (LXX) and earliest Christianity
The rabbinic Jews in Alexandria, where the Septuagint, the Greek
translation of the Tanakh (the First Testament of the
Bible) was written in / from the third century BC, were mainly already
strongly Hellenized (read: influenced by the image
of God as Plato and others had sketched it) and -by the
rabbinical prohibition- disaccustomed to use the glorious Name.
Hence, the translators of the Septuagint chose not to transliterate the
glorious Name (approximate the sound using Greek
letters), as was done with all other names, but initially leave it
there in Paleo-Hebrew script () or in the later Aramaic-Hebrew script (יהוה). The first version was often not recognized or understood,
and the second visually resembled the Greek letters ΠΙΠΙ, and was sometimes pronounced Pipi, which of course was also
undesirable. This soon led to most versions of the Septuagint replacing
the glorious Name with the Greek κύριος -
Kurios or θεός - Theos (Supreme Master, and God, respectively)).
Furthermore, the Hebrew expression by which
God described Himself in His first encounter with Moses, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה - ’Ehyeh ’asher ’Ehyeh - I am Who I am, was
translated into Septuagint Greek in heavily Platonic terms, as: ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν - I am The Being.
This impersonal translation stressed God’s transcendence, and
was devoid of the notion of 'being there with someone', the notion of
God acting purposeful and relationally committed on behalf of His people,
and the state of forming and becoming, all present in the Hebrew original.
Unnecessary to state that this implied a great impoverishment of the Biblical
image of God YaHUaH.4
The first apostles and evangelists were Jews, most of whom had become
somewhat alienated from the daily use of God’s Name YaHUaH. And so,
this fitted in well with their Greek-minded listeners. They simply felt no
need to take a closer look at how this God YaHUaH had actually
revealed Himself to His people Israel (as recorded in
the Hebrew Bible).
Or at what Jesus taught His disciples, as we read in the High Priestly
prayer in John 17 (verse 6): “I have revealed Your Name to the people whom You have given Me out of the
world. They belonged to You and You have given them to Me and they have kept
Your Word.”
And since most new Christians spoke Greek, the Septuagint was by far the
most widely used version of the First Testament among them. So they simply
did not come into contact with the fact that the God of the Bible, unlike
the supreme god of Plato, did have a Personal Name. As far as they heard
about it, it was soon seen as something specific of the ancient people of
Isra’el, which they no longer considered important to them because of the
coming of Jesus. The smaller - mostly regional - Greek and Roman idols also
had names, and they no longer mattered either... This alienation continued
even further as the gap between Christianity and Judaism widened. Where
the Greek text of the New Testament spoke of a Kurios, people often
thought primarily of Jesus. That Peter in his speech on that great Pentecost
Day (Acts 2:21; see part (6) in this
series) quoted Jo’el 2:32 and that Kurios there is the
replacement of the glorious Name יהוה -
YaHUaH, of that most people had no idea...
Up until this time...
Thus the factual and glorious proper Personal Name of the God of the Bible
became completely unknown, so that eventually, in this day and age, even the
original pronunciation of this glorious Name is often declared unknown among
Christian theologians, and one continues replacing and ignoring the glorious
Name Himself... because the traditional replacement ‘LORD’ is already so established...
And besides, it is prefered not to offend rabbinic Judaism. However, this
does invoke the question to arise: is it then more preferable to offend God
YaHUaH Himself...?
That loyalty to rabbinic Judaism is still very evident today in the Roman
Catholic church, where in June 2008 the Vatican (Pope
Benedict, through Cardinal Francis Arinze) proclaimed that in songs,
prayers, sermons, etc. in the church liturgy, the Name of God is not
allowed to be mentioned.5 The Vatican is said to have done so at the
insistence of Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome.
Rather ironically, given that Pope Clement XII, for example, in his time
ordered the construction of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, which still shows
statues of Greco-Roman idols to this day...
Does it then no longer have any power of expression what God YaHUaH
Himself says about mentioning His Name and mentioning the names of idols?
And you shall overthrow their altars and break
their pillars to pieces, and burn their idol-images with fire [that is, those of the people whom God expelled from before
them]. And you shall cut down the carved images of their gods, and
make their names disappear from that place. But you shall not do
so to JaHUaH your God.
Deut.12:3-4 (emphasis added)
There are those who motivate the non-use of God’s Name from Exodus 20:7
or Leviticus 24:11-16 (which even indicates that in
Isra’el there was a death penalty if someone deliberately abused or slandered
God’s holy Name). Obviously, the Name of God is extremely venerable
and sacred. He deserves it that we use Him pure and with the utmost respect,
as Exodus 20:7 indicates:
Do not abuse the Name of YaHUaH, your God,
for YaHUaH will not hold innocent who abuses His Name.
For the sake of clarity, I indicate in my large document
about The Name1 that the Hebrew word used in Exodus 20:7 for ‘abuse’
(other translations: ‘use in vain’; or: ‘use
lightly’) is: to take up to שָּׁוְא -
shav’; in meaning this contains notions such as: emptiness, deception,
lies, deceit, nililation, vain/vanity (it is related to
שואה - sho’ah - destruction, the Hebrew
word for the Holocaust).
You cannot put God, the Almighty, for your own deceitful cart, but you
also should not make His glorious Name ‘empty’ or nihilate it by forgetting
or replacing Him with a rather meaningless title... Of the first part of the
above text I also encountered this fairly accurate translation: “Do not make
empty or worthless the Name of YaHUaH, your God.” In my opinion, we
will ‘make empty’ His venerable Name if we no longer learn and respect the
meaning of the lovely Name (as is strongly encouraged
when we replace the glorious Name by a relatively ‘empty’ title such as
‘LORD’).
As I said in an earlier part: the names of many Greek, Roman and Germanic
idols are still known by many in our society, but the glorious Name of the
God of the Bible has become unknown! Horrible!
I am happy that more and more people are rediscovering, paying
attention to and honoring the glorious Name of the God of the Bible today.
For He is more than worthy of our attention and praise! And His wonderful
Name is also so enormously rich in meaning for us...
Not us, YaHUaH, not us, but Your Name give
glory, for Your loving kindness, for Your faithfulness.
Psalm 115:1
Hallelu YaHUaH !
Notes
| 1 |
The glorious Name of God I represent here as accurately
as possible from the oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand
personal Name of The Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’. For more
background information see:
André H. Roosma, ‘The
wonderful and lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who
will be there’  , extensive Accede! / Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009.
See also the other articles on the
significant Name of God, on the articles page here. |
| 2 |
What is not so well known is that this did not always
happen. I am not very well acquainted with the English language situation,
but in the Netherlands various translators have tried to keep the glorious
Name alive in their translations. Two such early Dutch Bible translations were
those of J.D. Michaëlis (ed. Wed. J.v.Schoonhoven, Utrecht, 1781); and by Van Vloten (published by G.T.v.Paddenburg en Zoon and
J.Allart, Utrecht / Amsterdam, 1790); in it the divine Name was transliterated
as Jehovah or Jehova. Of the Statenvertaling (Dutch State’s
Translation, comparable to the KJV) of 1637, around 1750 Goetzee published a
version, in which the name of God was also transliterated as Jehovah.
Something similar has been the case with the so called Leidse translation
(published in Leiden) in the early 20th century, where in the first editions
the divine Name was transliterated as Jahweh (Yahweh). And relatively
recently (2008), a study edition of the Nieuwe Bijbel-Vertaling (New
Bible Translation) was released, in which the Name of God is presented as
JHWH (YHWH).
In addition, the New World Translation of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses of 1963/69 also maintained the divine Name and translated it
as Jehovah.
It is remarkable that in the creation of the Nieuwe Bijbel-Vertaling,
and during consultation thereafter, many other translation suggestions for
the Name of God were forwarded, such as: De Eeuwige (The Eternal), de
Aanwezige (The One Present), de Levende (The Living One), De Enige (The Only
One), De Betrokkene, JHWH (YHWH); because:
- Lord is exclusively male, while YHWH is gender neutral;
- Lord has the connotation of ruler;
- Lord does not do justice to the meanings of YHWH;
- you don’t translate a proper name;
- Jesus is also called Lord;
- an appeal to tradition is an appeal to the - non-authoritative -
Septuagint.
|
| 3 |
In his vlog at Hebrew Voices, Information Unleashed,
Nehemiah Gordon gives his Karaite view of the roots of Chanukkah and points
out that, according to him, the ban on God’s holy Name has a pagan origin
among the Greeks and Romans. However, his reference concerning a ban by the
Romans is not quite correct; a Jew was horribly burned alive by the Romans in
the scroll from which he preached, and later some rabbis declared that
this was a punishment from God for openly mentioning the glorious Name in
stead of hiding it; the Romans did not mention this as a ground for their
punishment.
As for the Karaites, unlike rabbinic Judaism, the Karaites do not believe
in the Talmud as God-inspired and uphold the Biblical teaching that the
glorious Name may be mentioned, when it is done with due respect. |
| 4 |
For further details on this, see: Pavlos D. Vasileiadis,
'Exodus 3:14 as an
Explanation of the Tetragrammaton: What if the Septuagint Rendering had no
Platonic Nuances?', Biblische Notizen. Neue Folge 183 (2019), pp.
101–128. |
| 5 |
Thus, it was announced via CWN by the American Bishop
for liturgical questions, Arthur J. Serratelli von Paterson in the ‘Vatican
directive: ‘Yaweh’ inappropriate for liturgical use’ |
About all this, a few months ago I came across a very
well-founded scientific article by the Greek scientist Pavlos D. Vasileiadis,
‘Jesus, the New Testament, and the Sacred Tetragrammaton’.
He explains that around the beginning of our era, the Name of Israel’s God
was widely known by nearly all the nations around the Mediterranean. Then,
under the heading, “Which is the name of the God of the Bible?”,
he says:
“According to the book of Exodus, when
God revealed Himself to Moses, He introduced Himself by a Hebrew
quadriliteral name, known as Tetragrammaton. This name is
transliterated in English as YHWH and occurs some 6,823 times in the Hebrew
Bible. It is also found in inscriptions of the biblical period. The Mesha Stele
(Moabite Stone) of the 10th century BCE,
the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions of the ninth to eighth centuries BCE, and the
Lachish and Arad ostraca of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE are witnesses
to a centuries-long use of this name inside and outside the land of Israel.*
Actually, the Tetragrammaton is probably inscribed in an Egyptian hieroglyphic
list at the temple of Soleb at Nubia (Sudan), built by Amenhotep III in the
14th century BCE.*
The Tetragrammaton, commonly pronounced Yahweh (Heb. יַהְוֶה) or Jehovah (Heb. יְהוָֺה), “has always
been regarded as the most sacred and the most distinctive name of God,” it is
“His proper name par excellence.” While the Bible mentions several names and
epithets of God, “it also speaks of the name of God in the singular.” Moreover,
in accordance to the Bible record, “the names of God are not of human
invention, but of divine origin, though they are all borrowed from human
language and derived from human and earthly relations.” God Himself made them
known to mankind as “they contain in a measure a revelation of the Divine
Being.”*
Regarding the Alexandrian LXX tradition, the eventual surrogation of the
divine proper name with an adjective that was used as a proper noun –
that is, “an anonymous epithet”* – meant to cause many theological
implications. The view that the translators of the Pentateuch rendered the
Tetragrammaton in Greek as κύριος and θεός has been held for centuries long. As a matter of
fact, this might be true for books translated after the Pentateuch: the
cosmopolitan Hellenistic environment of the Alexandrian Jewry would not use
any more a name that they felt represented a tribal, anthropomorphic god.
Despite the popular Greek religiosity that demanded names for the local and
foreign deities, the influence of the current philosophical trends caused a
major theological shift.
However, the Greek term κύριος “does not have
exactly the same connotation as Yahweh,” states L. Berkhof.* “In the Old
Testament God has a personal name” but “God in the Septuagint has no name,”
adds A. Walls.* Actually, the Greek rendering of the יהוה as κύριος (or, respectively, the
English LORD) “is neither a translation of the
Tetragrammaton, nor a transliteration of it, but a surrogate used
in its place, in token of reverence for the name itself.”* This implies that
the personal God of the patriarchs, Moses, David, and the prophets was
replaced by an abstract and remote transcendent entity. The communicative
God of the Hebrew Bible record was not transformed to one of the numerous
popular Greek deities but to the Supreme Being of the Platonic philosophers.
This stream of view that was solidified by Philo and later by philosophizing
Church Fathers and writers prevailed to such a degree that the primal OT
notion of the “name of God” came to sound mere Judaization. For the
Hellenistic Jews and later Christian intellectuals the God of the Bible and
the Platonic ὄντως Ὤν (The
Being; AHR) seemed to be much alike.* According to the second century
CE Greek philosopher Celsus, “it makes no difference whether the God who is
over all things be called by the name of Zeus, which is current among the
Greeks, or by that, e.g., which is in use among the Indians or Egyptians”
(transl. Fr. Crombie).* God was thought as being the one and only God,
meaning that he did not need a name in order to be distinguished among
others.*”
* for the many footnotes and references, see the original article
|
