Translated from the original by Chris Tsilikas
IT
IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A NAME TO DETERMINE GOD
First of all we
need to clarify that it is impossible to find a name to determine God. Not only
because the human language is impossible to find a word to describe the exact
meaning and the nature and the dimensions of God – due to its finite nature –
but also because if we enclose God in the narrow limits of a word or a name, He
immediately stops being God...
In order to be more
comprehensible we’ll give an example so as to elucidate what we mean when we
say that we put limits by naming something. For instance, we’ll take the word ‘table’. When we describe something as a
‘table’, we determine its attributes
and exclude all other attributes that may or could be attached to it. Therefore
we enclose its meaning within very narrow limits so as to avoid meaninglessness
while communicating.
When it comes to
God though, we cannot do the same because, as stated above, if God is narrowly
determined he stops being God. And to prove what we have been saying so far,
we’ll refer you to the Holy Bible – the most reliable source with regard to
religious matters – where there is a profusion of ‘names’ used for God, names
which are used selectively to describe a different attribute of God every time.
So:
1. I AM THAT I AM (‘Hayah’, in Hebrew). Exodus, 3:13-14
2. For thou shalt
worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name
is Jealous (‘Kanah’, in Hebrew). Exodus, 34:14
3. For thus saith
the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy (‘Kados’, in Hebrew). Isaiah, 57:15
4. Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be
ignorant of us, and Israel
acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer (‘Goel’, in
Hebrew). Isaiah, 63:16
So, the
Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘Watchtower’ is totally wrong to claim that
God has only one name and this is Jehovah. And they are even more wrong in
their claim that God should have a name to be distinguished by other gods.
Since, no other gods exist, ‘non gods’, as Apostle Paul says in the Acts of the
Apostles.
HOW
HAS THE ARTIFICIAL NAME JEHOVAH BEEN FORMED
It’s time now to
explain why we believe that the name ‘Jehovah’ attributed to God is an ARTIFICIAL name. Let’s take it from the
beginning so that we are clear in our claims. The words in the Hebrew language were
written without the use of any vowels. If we applied the same technique in
the English language, for example, we would write the word ‘father’ only with consonants, as follows: ‘fthr’. The vowels would be omitted because they would be easily
understood as they would derive from the combination of the consonants being
written. Exactly the same happened with a Hebrew word referring to the name of
God, which had four consonants, YHWH, often described today as the
Tetragrammaton (the word derives from the Greek language and means the four
letters).
Unfortunately, due
to the Jews’ superstitions and their strict tradition which impelled the need
to follow the Mosaic Laws strictly by the book, which said that God’s name
should not be pronounced, they did not pronounce God’s name and they referred
to Him by the Tetragrammaton YHWH. So, as time went by, the pronunciation of
the Tetragrammaton was completely forgotten.
Between the 6th
and the 10th centuries AC., Hebrew traditionalist scholars decided
to insert vowels in the ancient Hebrew text of the Old Testament, since as we
said it only included consonants. These scholars were called Masoretes and to
their honour the new text that came about was called Masoretic. The Masoretes
had no difficulty inserting vowels to all the words of the ancient Hebrew
language, because they were aware of the pronunciation of all the words except
for one, the Tetragrammaton YHWH.
To overcome this
problem they did something else. They took the vowels from another word which was used for God, the word ‘Adonai’, and inserted them to the
Tetragrammaton YHWH. Then applying different linguistic and phonetic rules of
the Hebrew language, they formed the word ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Jehovah’. In other
words, this name does not exist anywhere in the Old Testament, because it’s a Masoretic formulation of the 10th
century. From this century on this name is used abusively and for reasons of
communication, and it has even been used by Christian writers and theologists,
such as Saint Nectarios of Aegina, without been given any significant
attendance or meaning, because as we have already said it didn’t deserve it.
And to prove the
truth of what we have been saying so far about ‘Jehovah’ being an artificial
name we refer the reader to the Encyclopedia
Papyrus-Larus-Britannica, volume 17, page 264 (Greek edition). We have
selected this citation for two reasons. Not only is Papyrus-Larus-Britannica
well-known for its validity all over the world, but it’s also quoted quite
often by the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘Watchtower’; therefore its
validity for the ‘Watchtower’ is beyond doubt. For instance, quotations from
the specific encyclopedia are used in ‘The
Watchtower’ of 15th of May 1997, page 3 and in ‘The Watchtower’ of 1st of May
1999, page 15, etc.
Well, the
encyclopedia Papyrus-Larus-Britannica writes about the name Jehovah in volume
17, page 264 (Greek edition):
“The Masoretes, who, from the
6th to around the 10th centuries, worked on deciphering
the ancient text of the Hebrew Bible, replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with
the vowels of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elonai. This is how the artificial
name Jehovah (Yehowah) was brought into existence.”
‘Papyrus-Larus-Britannica’
(Greek edition)
Even the
Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘Watchtower’ agrees with everything we have
said about how the name of Jehovah was brought into existence. And we say this
because in their magazine ‘The
watchtower’ of the year 1960, p. 455, the Organization itself analyses
thoroughly and succinctly everything already said about the name of God
Jehovah. That is, they explain how the Masoretes took the vowels from the word
Adonai and put them in between the consonants of the Tetragrammaton YHWH in
order to form “Jehovah” as God’s name. Moreover, a further down on the same
pages, p. 455, the Organization ‘The Watchtower’ writes something that leaves
no doubt about the origin of the name ‘Jehovah’. More specifically, the
Organization claims that they use the name Jehovah in their publications, not because it’s right, but because humans
have got used to it since the 14th century:
*** w60 8/1
p. 455 Not Forgetting the Name of
God ***
Notwithstanding, it is almost
certain that the name of God was originally pronounced “Yah·weh′.” (In
“Jehovah” the sound of “Y” is represented by “J” and the sound of “W” by “V,”
as in Latin.) The Encyclopædia Britannica says: “It is now
generally agreed that Jahwe (Yahwe) is the true pronunciation.” The Universal
Jewish Encyclopedia states: “Yahveh is the most probable
transliteration of the ancient Hebrew name for God.” Bible translator J. B.
Rotherham said: “The true pronunciation seems to have been Yahwe.” The Catholic
Encyclopedia declares: “Jehovah, the proper name of God in the Old
Testament. . . . Inserting the vowels of Jabe [the Samaritan
pronunciation] into the original Hebrew consonant text, we obtain the form
Jahveh (Yahweh), which has been generally accepted by modern scholars as the
true pronunciation of the Divine name.” The New World
Bible Translation Committee stated: “While inclining to view the pronunciation
‘Yah·weh′” as the more correct way, we have retained the form ‘Jehovah’ because
of people’s familiarity with it since the 14th century. Moreover, it preserves,
equally with other forms, the four letters of the tetragrammaton JHVH.”
The Watchtower, 1960, p. 455, ‘Use
of the name of Jehovah due to familiarization’
WHY
HAVE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES BEEN CALLED SO?
And now let’s
explain the reasons why ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ have been called so. Up to 1931
they were known as the ‘Bible Student Movement’ or ‘Russelites’ (called after
their founder Charles Taze Russell). How, then, did they come to the adoption
of their current name? The facts that led to that adoption are as follows:
Before 1925 the President of the Company at that
moment, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, edits and issues a book entitled “Millions now living will never die”. In
that book Rutherford establishes the year 1925 as the year of the resurrection of the ancient Patriarchs
(Abraham, Isaac, Noah, etc.) and the year of the end of the world. But as
the year 1925 passed by and none of the above happened, a quite great number
of their followers – Jehovah’s Witnesses
did not exceed 56,000 then, anyway – rebels and departs from the movement. In
order to avoid the confusion that followed since both movements used the same
name, Rutherford thought something evil.
He decided to
change his movement’s name making it thus, clear that they are not connected in
any way to the movement of the rebels and, in addition, taking the stigma of
the wrong prediction off the back of his movement. Thus, in September, 1931,
during a conference in Columbus,
Ohio, after his suggestion, the
new name of Jehovah’s Witnesses is adopted. And since then crowds of Jehovah’s
Witnesses have been scouring the world to convince people of the necessity of
an artificial name for God for their own salvation. But, as the murderer always
hits twice, the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses comes back to the specific
name quite often in their publications because they understand how wrong they
are. From the numerous references to the specific issue that we have
encountered in their publications, we will cite an extract from an article
which appeared in the official issue of their magazine “The Watchtower” on 1st
February 1999, p. 31, entitled ‘Jehovah
or Yahweh’. Having discussed the views of different scientists on the issue
of the two names, the Organization concludes: “So there isn’t any doubtless way
to prove which vowels were inserted in the consonants YHWH”:
*** w99 2/1
p. 31 “Jehovah” or “Yahweh”? ***
No doubt the scholarly debate
will continue. Jews stopped pronouncing the name of the true God before the
Masoretes developed the system of vowel pointing. Thus, there is no
definitive way to prove which vowels accompanied the consonants YHWH (יהוה). Yet, the very names of Biblical figures—the
correct pronunciation of which was never lost—provide a tangible clue to the
ancient pronunciation of God’s name. On this account, at least some scholars
agree that the pronunciation “Jehovah” is not so “monstrous” after all.
“The Watchtower” on 1st February 1999, p. 31: So there is no
doubtless way to prove which vowels were inserted in the consonants “YHWH”
However, both the
Organization and its followers insist on persuading us how significant the name
is for our own salvation, a name that we don’t even know how it used to be
pronounced! The intellectual blindness the Holy Writ talks about is apparent in
actions like this.
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