Wednesday, January 30, 2013

What Is In a Name?

The Old Testament uses many different terms when referring to God. The most common word for God, Elohim, is actually a description and not a name. In some ways, "Higher Power," introduced by Bill W. through Alcoholics Anonymous, is a great synonym for Elohim (more on this point in a future blog).

But did you know that God actually introduced Himself and gave His personal Name to Moses at the "burning bush" in Exodus 3?

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God [Elohim] of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3: 13-14).

God, in essence, said to Moses that He could use His personal name, I AM. In the Hebrew, the actual Name is often referred to as the tetragrammaton, for the "four letters" that make up the Hebrew root: Y-H-W-H. Since the original Hebrew text did not include the vowel markings, the only way of knowing the pronunciation is through tradition. Since the verb "to be" would be a very common word, the Name is actually conjugated in an obscure form to avoid accidentally speaking it in casual conversation. The Name is probably close to Yahweh. And it would more literally mean something like "I will be."

[As an aside: the Third Commandment says, "Do not misuse the name of Yahweh Elohenu" or "Do not take the name of the LORD your God in vain" (Ex. 20: 7). Fearing the breaking of this commandment, a Jewish tradition arose to speak the word Adonai (Lord) whenever the name Yahweh appeared in the text. Thus a distinction between the kethib (the thing written) and the qere (the thing spoken). The Masoretic text is the result of hundreds of years of Jewish scholars' attempt to codify the vocalization of a text that originally contained no vowel markings. Whenever the reader came to the word, YHWH in the text, he was to speak the word for "Lord," Adonai (or sometimes the word for "God," Elohim). In order to ensure this, the vowels for Adonai were attached to the consonants for Yahweh which created a non-word, yahovah. So, Jehovah is actually a non-word that was never meant to be spoken. This is why the over 6,800 occurances of Yahweh are usually translated "the LORD" in most English-language Bibles.]

I have a kind of pet peeve over this particular issue. God told His people to use His personal name, Yahweh. I see this as an invitation into relationship with Him. It would be like the President saying, "I know I'm the President, but please call me Abe." In essence, he would be saying, "I want to relate to you and you to me on a personal level." To refuse to use "Abe" would be a refusal of relationship.

Not only that, it creates confusion at some points in translation. Case in point: "THE LORD said to my Lord" (Ps. 110: 1). Notice that the NIV translators use all-caps when translating Yahweh and lower-case when translating Adonai. This would be more accurately translated "Yahweh said to my Lord."

Or in Psalm 8: 9: "O LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Doesn't it make more sense to sing: "O Yahweh our Lord..."?

I will continue the implications of the Divine Name in my next blog, but let me close this one with an observation. The God of the Universe is a personal God who created us humans with the capacity to enter into a relationship with Him where we can actually get to know Him. It doesn't make sense to get a personal invitation and then refuse it because we are afraid of Him.

Jesus came to us as the way that this personal God becomes accessible in a way that Israel could never seem to grasp. Don't you think it is time to accept that invitation?

More next week...


4 comments:

  1. Really liked this! Thanks, Mark.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So Yahweh would translate into "I AM THAT I AM" or "I AM WHO I AM" everywhere the Lord's name is capitalized? It's my understanding there are many parts of the bible actually changed because the Sanhedrin wanted control. It is true for the new testament too. These Sanhedrin are the arch-deceivers that did not want the children of the light to have access to God accept through them (who are the seed of the wicked). The Book of Enoch has a quiet good explanation. But, of course, it was not included in the bible for their good reason too?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeffrey, thank you for your comments. You raise several issues which I'll break into three comments:

      1. The translation of Yahweh would be "I am" or "I will be." My next blog entry will go into that.

      2. In my opinion, the idea that the Sanhedrin messed with the text is a fallacy. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the last century shows that the Old Testament texts have been fairly reliably preserved. The science of "textual criticism" which studies and compares the various textual evidence kept in libraries and museums around the world has resulted in a high degree of reliability for our New Testament texts as well and there are good scholarly references to deal with the 50 or so variants that are still in dispute, none of which significantly impacts orthodox theology. I do not give credence to conspiracy theories about the text. In fact, just the opposite. The vast amount of data supports the idea that the Old and New Testament texts have been miraculously preserved by God, despite the ravages of time and the attempted emendations of scribes. There are simply too many manuscripts for any conspiracy to succeed.

      3. The Book of Enoch is among many pseudepigraphal and deuterocanonical works that have been rejected as not authoritative through centuries of careful debate. The discipline called "Historical Theology" studies such things. The canon of scripture, that is the 39 OT and 27 NT books, have been debated and eventually accepted as the inspired Word of God. Other writings have been rejected for various reasons, all debated by councils through the ages.

      My recommendation is not to get sidetracked by fruitless conspiracy ideas. Apply yourself to understanding and obeying the Bible. It will be a life-long and life-giving pursuit. I speak from experience.
      Mark

      Delete
  3. Hurrah! At last I got a weblog from where I be capable of in fact get useful data concerning
    my study and knowledge.
    My web blog ; check now

    ReplyDelete