Thursday, August 4, 2022

Did Tyndale Invent Jehovah?

Sometimes we are presented with the claim that Tyndale created the name "Jehovah".

According to Wikipedia: "Jehovah was first introduced by William Tyndale in his translation of Exodus 6:3, and appears in some other early English translations including the Geneva Bible and the King James Version."

Evidently, this is referring to the form of the Holy Name as "Jehovah", not to the Holy Name itself. Actually, the Holy Name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, often represented in English as Jehovah, was created by God Himself. Scripturally, speaking, however, names change in form from language to language, and yet they are not considered as different names but rather the same "name". It is only in recent centuries that people have begun to treat various forms as different names. 

God's Holy Name name is represented in ancient Hebrew with four Hebrew characters, without written vowels, as ancient Hebrew had no written vowels for any name or word. Some have claimed the Holy Name was not pronounced because it had no vowels. If this is true, then no name, no word in ancient Hebrew, was ever pronounced, since no word at all had written vowels. The fact that ancient Hebrew did not have any written vowels does not mean that the vowels were not pronounced when the words were spoken. There is definitely no evidence that, in the times of the Old Testament, no one gave any pronunciation to the Holy Name because it had no vowels. There is nothing anywhere in the Old Testament that says that God's Holy Name is ineffable. Nor is there anything in the Bible that says that God commanded that his Holy Name had to be pronounced in all languages exactly as it was pronounced in ancient Hebrew, or else it is a false name. All these ideas come from man, not from God.

In most ancient languages, however, names often took on different forms within the same language, often depending how the name is sounded in context. Each variation, however, was not considered a different name, but rather as being the same name. The same is true with names rendered from the Hebrew Scriptures to the New Testament Greek scriptures. Likewise, the evidence indicates that a name rendered from Hebrew to Greek may have been given different sounds in Greek than in Hebrew, but in such circumstances, the forms of the name in Greek were not considered as being a different name than what appears in the Hebrew, but they were still considered as the same name even though they did not sound exactly the same as they did in Hebrew.

Several centuries after Christ, the Masoretes sought to provide written vowels for the ancient Hebrew. One of the forms that they provided was that which can be transliterated into English as "Iehouah," "Yehowah," "Jehovah." etc., depending on whose transliteration method one may use. It is generally believed that the Masoretes took vowel points they supplied to form the words often transliterated as Adonay and/or Elohim to create the forms of the Holy Name as is given their text, but there is no evidence in their work that they did such. 

Regardless of how some have claimed to prove that the Masoretes used vowel points they have provided to form ADONAI to used in the tetragrammaton, their proof always ends up being some kind of hypothesis presented as being fact. In other words, it is assumed that this or that is true, and this or that is presented as being fact. We have never, however, seen anything presented from the Masoretes themselves as to why or how they used certain vowel points in the Holy Name. Actually, the internal evidence from the Masoretes' work would seem to indicate that they did not take vowel points they supplied for any other word so as to form "Jehovah". 

God's Holy Name in Hebrew is a verb, an active form of the root of "to be". In Exodus 3:14 we find the Holy Name first presented with the form often transliterated as EHJEH (some transltierate as EHYEH, or even EHYAH). The name, however, in Exodus 3:15, however, is in the Masoretic Hebrew the form that is often transliterated as "Jehovah", "Iehouah", "Yehowah", or variations of these forms. In Exodus 3:14, we find the name presented in the first person form, which can be translated as "I am", "I will be", "I cause to be", etc. In verse 15, however, we find the same name presented, but it is in third person form ("He is", "He will be", "He causes to be", etc.). These two forms should not be thought of as two different names, but they are still the same name, presented from different perspectives.

Tyndale, however, did not actually present God's Holy Name as "Jehovah". Tyndale usually rendered the Holy Name in English as "Lord", "Lorde", "the Lorde", etc. In seven instances, however, he rendered the Holy Name, not as "Jehovah", but as "Iehouah": Genesis 15:2; Exodus 6:3; 15:3; 17:15; 23:17; 33:19; 34:23. Nevertheless, in many, if not most, English dialects of that time this may have been pronounced more like we pronounce "Jehovah," or "Jehouah," or possibly with the "J" sounding something like "J" in the French "Jascques".
https://youtu.be/8zuQae2OrMI

Some, however, have claimed that one has to pronounce the Holy Name as it was originally pronounced or else it is not the Holy Name. The Bible itself makes no such claim. The reality is that no one on earth today knows how it was originally pronounced. Many have presented various hypotheses of how they thought it should be pronounced, and they present their hypotheses as being facts, but the reality is that they do not know for a certainty how it was originally pronounced. On the hand, those who make a such claim do not appear to think of what such an idea leads to, since no one on earth today knows for a certainty how it was originally pronounced. All we have are various conclusions based on assumptions that are often thought, or at least presented as being, fact.

Others claim that certain scriptures (such as Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11) forbid mispronouncing the Holy Name, or based on these or similar scriptures, some claim that the Holy Name should not be pronounced at all. This appears to be the basis for substituting Adonai or Elohim for God's Holy name. Oddly, if it is thought that God's name should not be pronounced for fear of mispronouncing the Holy Name, pronouncing the Holy Name as Adonai or Elohim (or, HaShem, Kurios, Lord, the Lord, God, etc.) would surely be pronouncing, actually mispronouncing, the Holy Name by whatever words are being used to replace the Holy Name. We do not know of anyone that actually avoids giving some kind of pronunciation to God's Holy Name. To not give any pronunciation to the Holy Name, when reading the scriptures aloud, they would actually have skip over every place where a form of the Holy Name appears. We have not found anyone who actually does this. 

Some claim that they avoid pronouncing the Holy Name by substituting other words, such as ADONAI, HASHEM, ELOHIM, LORD, the LORD, GOD, etc., for the Holy Name. In reality such substitutions do not avoid pronouncing the Holy Name, but rather doing this results in pronouncing the Holy Name as being whatever words are used.

For instance, in Isaiah 42:8, The Complete Jewish Bible rendering is: "I am ADONAI; that is my name." So when one reads Isaiah 42:8 audibly, he would pronounce God's Holy Name as "ADONAI". Is "ADONAI" the correct original pronunciation of the Holy Name? No, it is not. ADONAI is indeed a fake name, a fake way, to pronounce the one Holy Name of the Most High. If one is seeking to avoid the pronunciation of the Holy Name, or if one is seeking to not mispronounce the Holy Name, changing the Holy Name to ADONAI, and pronouncing the Holy Name as ADONAI is certainly not the way to do so.

Many Bible translations in English render Isaiah 42:8 similar to: "I am the LORD, that is my name." As this reads, one would actually be pronouncing the Holy Name as "the LORD." Does the "the LORD" actually give the original pronunciation of the Holy Name. Certainly not! Indeed, it give a false English form as being the Holy Name, and to pronounce the Holy Name as "the LORD" would certainly be a false pronunciation of the Holy Name.

The Message Bible translation renders Isaiah 42:8 as "I am God. That's my name." Again, is God the original and or the correct way to pronounce God's Holy Name? Obviously, it isn't. So if one is concerned about the correct pronunciation, or of not pronouncing the Holy Name, to pronounce the Holy Name as "God" certainly does not fit either concern.

Regardless, it is not our argument that "Jehovah" [or, Iehouah, Yehowah, etc.] is the way the Holy Name of originally pronounced. No one on earth today knows for a certainty how God's Holy Name was originally pronounced, or how it may have varied in pronunciation in ancient Hebrew. It is simply not important for us to know, or else God would have provided some definite way for us to know the original pronunciations. 



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