Yahweh's Witnesses?

[historia]

Picking up a topic from an earlier thread: According to scholars, the ancient Hebrew word for God, YHWH, was most likely vocalized as "Yahweh," while the term "Jehovah" is a late-Medieval rendering that transposes the vowels for Adonai into YHWH.

Question for debate: Should Jehovah's Witnesses stop using the term "Jehovah" and instead use the term "Yahweh?"

[2timothy316]

As far as I can tell, none of the websites in those Google results provide data indicating which form of the divine name is more common and recognized in English today. I'm afraid this didn't support your assertion.

Its not the websites it found it was the search I used.
what is the most recognized name for God
#1 result Jehovah.

So it DOES support my assertion.

Yeah, that's simply not how Google works.

This is how Google works.
https://developers.google.com/search/do ... arch-works
It does not work the way you explained below. It's WAY more in depth. Here is another search for what is the English name for God. Guess what the #1 result is again.

https://www.google.com/search?newwindow ... =921&dpr=1

If I do a search for "which name are people more familiar with Jehovah or Yahweh" the top search result is for Yahweh. If I just do a search for "name of God" the top result is also for Yahweh.

Does that mean that Yahweh is the name people are more familiar with? No, because Google isn't some kind of "oracle" answering our questions. It's a search engine that simply returns web pages that contain the words you searched for, and sorts them according to a relevancy ranking algorithm that takes into account term frequency, inverse document frequency, and linking. That's it.

Now, if you want to look at how frequently authors are using the terms "Yahweh" and "Jehovah" in books, Google can give us that information. And that is, I think quite telling, albeit only an indirect indicator of its usage among the general population.

Do you know the difference between transliteration and translation?

Yes.

Yahweh and Jehovah, do you know which is a transliteration and which is a translation?

They are both transliterations.

This is incorrect.
It is most likely that both are closer to translations because the original full name of God we only know of 4 letters. Hebrew letter to boot. That makes any rendering of those four letters a translation because a translation makes the word something that we understand in our own language. That is translation. https://www.serviceobjects.com/blog/und ... anslation/
Transliteration is raw data. Translation is much more as the article explains. Thus the transliteration of the Hebrew letters is YHWH. Yahweh is foreign to most English speaking people. Which is why Google presents the results Jehovah and not Yahweh. Just like Yeshua would be to a English speaking Catholic. Even my auto-correct underlines Yeshua as being an unrecognized word.

The Awake! article from 1973 that you are likely basing this argument on -- I came across it earlier when searching -- is simply mistaken on this point.

Your opinion of what an Awake said is not proof of anything. It is a stawman to argue about an article that I didn't post.

If you do, then you'd know why books are translated and not transliterated.

The Bible contains both translation and transliteration. Importantly for our purposes, names are usually transliterated. You would know that already from a Google search for "transliteration."

Yet you think you know when to use which when and think others should follow your idea. Do you hold a degree in linguistics? No, I didn't think so. So this whole thread is an opinion piece with no actual proof that Witnesses should change their name. And you're not going to see some campaign by Catholics to turn the name English name of Jesus to Yeshua. Think for a moment why not and that is why Jehovah's Witnesses do not need to change their name. There is no need to as both Yahweh and Jehovah are both recognized as names for God but only Jehovah is more common in English. I use Jehovah because I'm not trying to say the name how it would sound in Hebrew. Just like no one is trying to say Jesus' name in Hebrew. Just because you think people should is not a valid reason.

There are many words in the English language that come from other languages, yet no one is tries to say the original pronunciation of the word. If we are going to turn Jehovah into Yahweh then we might as well start saying ALL other words as they originally sounded. Why only Jehovah? Oy vay!

[tam]

Peace to you,

If we are going to turn Jehovah into Yahweh then we might as well start saying ALL other words as they originally sounded.

All other words are not the name of God. His name is holy.




Most of my comments to this topic can be found in the link from the OP. Not sure I have anything new to add; pretty sure everything is covered there. I just caught this comment and made a quick response.

Peace again to you all,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[historia]

Did Jesus learn what the washer women, the farmers and the prostitutes and manual workers knew from ..*cough* .. survey data? Oh I forgot, academia has found a better way .... SMH

I would expect a better argument than this from you, my friend.

My point is that the Christian mission is not to produce academic studies (which more often than not blow hither and wither with whatever is fashionable) and if you (general "you" as in, "one") if a person needs a paper to judge the reality that is just outside their door, they need to get out more.

Funny you should phrase it that way.

I was coming back from lunch yesterday thinking about this thread, and, as I got to my door, I saw my neighbor, who is not religious. We got to talking, and I asked him if he was familiar with the name of God in the Old Testament.

He was a bit puzzled as to why I was asking that, but I told him I was just curious about people's general knowledge on this topic. He paused for a bit and said "Yahweh" or "Allah." After informing him that "Allah" was the Arabic term for God, I asked him if he was familiar with the name "Jehovah." He had not heard of it.

Anyway, that's the reality just outside my door. But I'm not interested in that, I want to know the reality across the entire country, or even the entire English-speaking world. For that we'd need a survey or some other type of non-anecdotal data. Your suggestion above that it's somehow un-Christian to use survey data leaves me scratching my head.

to take a stance that unless mainstream Christian organisations or academic institutions reach a consensus on what is popular, it it cannot be popular, is riduculous.

No one is making that argument.

I feel confident your point is not that it is wrong or morally objectionable for us to be called Jehovah's Witnesses

Indeed, I would never suggest that.

over and above the perennial suggestion that there are other forms closer to the original, I find it hard to see what your point actually is.

I don't really have a specific point I'm trying to make. I've been thinking lately about the fact that I often see Christian speakers and clergy using "Yahweh," particularly when talking about the Old Testament, and rarely ever see "Jehovah" used anymore. Which got me wondering if there would come a point where Jehovah's Witnesses would feel compelled -- or find it advantageous -- to update their name, so decided to ask that question here after reading the other thread.

[JehovahsWitness]

I don't really have a specific point I'm trying to make. ...

Well then you have achieved that with merit. Seriously, I think we have communicated our position clearly and unless you feel some wrong has been committed, I cannot see how by our favoring the traditional form of the tetragrammaton over another makes any difference to anything of value.

. Which got me wondering if there would come a point where Jehovah's Witnesses would feel compelled -- or find it advantageous -- to update their name, so decided to ask that question here after reading the other thread.

It is I think it is close to impossible we will ever follow the clerical habit of removing the Divine name from our references to the Christian scriptures and extremely unlikely we will ever "update"our name in English to reflect current ecclesiastical trends in the Western world.

[historia]

Its not the websites it found it was the search I used.
what is the most recognized name for God
#1 result Jehovah.

Yeah, that's simply not how Google works.

This is how Google works.
https://developers.google.com/search/do ... arch-works

Yeah, that page substantiates what I said. Google search results are sorted by a relevancy ranking algorithm. That algorithm takes into account things like your location and other minor factors that I didn't mention in my very brief summary above, but the basic components of the algorithm are what I previously mentioned.

More to the point, there is absolutely nothing in Google's description of the algorithm that would validate the way you are treating the results, as if the first result is somehow "answering" your question. That's bonkers.

And we don't need to know all the details of the algorithm to see that that is the case. The fact that some searches -- like the ones I offered above -- result in a web page on "Yahweh" being the first results shows your argument is completely nonsensical.

Yahweh and Jehovah, do you know which is a transliteration and which is a translation?

They are both transliterations.

This is incorrect.

I'm afraid you are simply confused.

https://www.serviceobjects.com/blog/und ... anslation/

The web page you cited here explains what transliteration is quite well: it is "the process of converting a word or single character from one writing system to that of another."

The author gives this example:

the Japanese word こんにちは will transliterate to KONNICHIWA in English. In this case, each letter from the Japanese word can be transliterated to English on its own.

こ ⇒ KO
ん ⇒ N
に ⇒ NI
ち ⇒ CHI
は ⇒ HA or WA

Likewise, the Hebrew word יְהוָֹה (as it appears in the Masoretic Text, with the vowel points from adonai) will transliterate to JEHOVAH in English. Here too, each letter from the Hebrew word can be transliterated to English on its own.

י ⇒ Y (or J)
ְ ⇒ E
ה ⇒ H
ֹ ⇒ O
ו ⇒ W (or V)
ָ ⇒ A
ה ⇒ H

This is transliteration: Taking the letters/sounds from a word in a non-Roman script (in this case Hebrew) and rendering it in a Roman script (which we use in English). Both 'Yahweh' and 'Jehovah' are transliterations, obviously.

A translation, on the other hand, is rendering the meaning of a foreign language word into English. So the Greek word κύριος, for example, can be transliterated into English as kyrios, but is translated into English as 'Lord'.

You don't typically translate names from one language to another, you transliterate them.

The Bible contains both translation and transliteration. Importantly for our purposes, names are usually transliterated. You would know that already from a Google search for "transliteration."

Yet you think you know when to use which when and think others should follow your idea. Do you hold a degree in linguistics?

No, but you don't need a degree in linguistics to understand the difference between translation and transliteration. It's actually pretty simple.

But I do appreciate this jab at my academic credentials. It's fun to be told by two different people in the same thread that I'm simultaneously too academic and not academic enough.

And you're not going to see some campaign by Catholics to turn the name English name of Jesus to Yeshua. Think for a moment why not and that is why Jehovah's Witnesses do not need to change their name.

Catholics are just following tradition here. If tradition is your reason for sticking with 'Jehovah', that's cool. I like tradition.

If we are going to turn Jehovah into Yahweh then we might as well start saying ALL other words as they originally sounded. Why only Jehovah?

There is a difference between Jehovah and other names.

'Jehovah' is a kind of portmanteau, combining the consonants of one word with the vowels of another. And, by most accounts, was arrived at by mistake, as late Medieval Christians created the word without properly understand the vowel pointing conventions of the Masoretes when it came to the divine name.

'Yahweh' has now supplanted it as the preferred (if not in fact the more popular) rendering, not because people are just eager to use a more Hebrew-sounding word, or whatever, but because they recognize that 'Jehovah' is a mistaken rendering. It makes sense, then, to treat it differently from other biblical names.

[JehovahsWitness]

Jehovah' is a mistaken rendering. It makes sense, then, to treat it differently from other biblical names.

Jehovah is not a "mistaken" rendering it is an alternative rendering. One can only say mistaken if one knows for sure what is right , which I am sure you know is not the case. This rendering is probably not theclosest to the original pronunciation but you dont believe that being the closest to the original is the most important consideration when it comes to bible names (correct me if I am mistaken).


SHOULD THE DIVINE NAME BE TREATED DIFFERENTLY ?


While you are wrong to imply the traditional form of JEHOVAH is a mistake, you are correct that the tetragrammaton merits special treatment. That its original pronunciation has been lost (please interject here if you believe that is NOT the case) does indeed merit it is treated "differently" namely that we allow more (not less) scope in acceptable transliterations. Whether we pick the vowels from adonai, elohim or randomly from a bag* , makes no difference in the case of the tetragrammaton. In this the Divine name is indeed treated differently to other biblical names. In short, because of its history, unlike other biblical names, we should desist from pronouncing one transliteration a "mistake".

* re: "portmanteau" it is a tranliteration so it is not a question of compromising the meaning of the name



JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to ....

GOD, THE DIVINE NAME and ...THE DIVINE PERSONALITY

[JehovahsWitness]

ARE THE REASON CERTAIN VOWELS WERE CHOSEN VALID BASIS TO PRONOUNCE A PARTICULAR TRANSLITERATION WRONG?


Certain feel very strongly that because the vowels choice of JEHOVAH was reportedly "placeholders" to not pronounce the divine name, they must be the wrong vowels. Even if that is the case, since we do not know which vowels are correct ones , any alternative choices can still not be considered correct. The Masoretes were not inventing a different word, and in repecting the four consonants of the tetragrammaton were not departing from the names core meaning.

If being closest to the original pronunciation is NOT the primary consideration, then the masoretic choices are as good as any.

There are groups for whom the pronunciation is indeed paramount and they will, one presumes, revise their usage accordingly. As far as pronunciation is concerned, Jehovahs Witnesses are not of this group and it is unlikely in the forseeable future they ever will be.




JEHOVAH'S WITNESS






PRONUNCIATION

Has the original pronunciation of the Divine Name been lost?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 79#p915179

Should the Divine Name be treated differently from other biblical names?
viewtopic.php?p=1091152#p1091152

Should the Masoretic vowel choice be rejected?
viewtopic.php?p=1091154#p1091154

Does the letter /j/ belong in the Divine name?
viewtopic.php?p=1029301#p1029301

Do theophoric names present clues as to how the Divine Name was originally pronounced?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 66#p872166

Is there an academic consensus on the correct pronunciation of the Divine Name (YHWH)? (3-syllable)
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 88#p822688

To learn more please go to other posts related to ....

GOD, THE DIVINE NAME and ...THE DIVINE PERSONALITY

[2timothy316]

Yet you think you know when to use which when and think others should follow your idea. Do you hold a degree in linguistics?

No,

Then we are done here because your opinion doesn't count and you don't use a single reference with your assertions. Since you don't have any creds and nothing to back your posts then I have no reason to trust what you say or reply to stuff you make up as you go.