Theories on Yahweh

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For more information about Yahweh, see Criticism of Yahweh and God in Abrahamic religions, which provides useful links.
The Tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew (10th c. BCE– c. 135 CE), Aramaic (800 BCE– 600 CE) and modern Hebrew (3rd c. BCE– Present.

Yahweh is an English transliteration of יהוה, (the Tetragrammaton), which is the distinctive personal name of the God of Israel [1] as it occurs in the consonantal Hebrew Text. Though Yahweh is concluded to be the most accurate pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, criticisms and speculative theory does exist about the Name of the Hebrew Mighty One.

Contents

Importance of the Name

Part of a series on
Yahweh

Appeared in

Yahwist
Torah
Bible

Other names

YHVH
Zeus
Jupiter

Prophets

Moses · Elijah · Jesus
Joseph Smith

Beliefs

Yahwism
House of Yahweh
Assemblies of Yahweh

Controversy

Criticisms and theories on Yahweh
Yahweh and Allah

A fundamental question is whether the Name is important. Most groups have concluded it isn't relevant anymore and therefore, rejected any use of a Sacred Name. On August 8, 2008, Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishop's Committee on Divine Worship, announced a new Vatican directive regarding the use of the name of God in the sacred liturgy. "Specifically, the word 'Yahweh' may no longer be 'used or pronounced' in songs and prayers during liturgical celebrations." This action was justified by claiming that they would now have respect for Jewish Law and therefore remove the Name Yahweh from their Bible's and their songbooks. The Name Yahweh, though accepted as the most accurate pronunciation, is not a popular Name amongst either Christians or Jews. They aren't any groups that hold to the use of the Sacred Name: the only unified group, exclusively using the Sacred Name (Yahweh) being the Assemblies of Yahweh. Other forms are used such as Jehovah (Jehovah Witnesses), and by the Sacred Name Movement. Most respectable encyclopedias testify that the Name of Yahweh is the most accurate pronunciation based upon historic and linguistic evidence.

Name origins theories

It can be added to the concept that the term came from a corruption of "foreign vowels": When dealing with interpretation and language (script), it should be borne in mind that in the Indian tradition, a letter of the alphabet known as an akshara, means indelible, basic, elementary, or primordial; it is also called a varna, which means color, formation, type, or pattern. The alphabet is called varna-mala, i.e., a garland of letters. According to the Tantric scriptures, the fifty one letters of the alphabet are represented as the fifty one dismembered limbs of the body of the Great Mother, the creative energy of the universe. While in the dynamic aspect of actual creation of the physical world, i.e., in the form of Kar (doing), she is known as Kari or Kali and wears a garland of fifty human heads around her neck, the varna-mala, and holds one head in her hand. Each letter of the alphabet is, therefore, a pattern or color prototype of the function of the creative energy at a certain stage of physical creation. According to Tantricism, there are fifty one elementary types, in almost the same sense in which a modern chemist considers his periodic table and a limited number of elements as being basic for creation of all matters of the universe.

To begin with, therefore, each letter of the alphabet is only a pictorial representation of the function of the creative energy. The dynamic aspect of the creative energy is manifest as the spirit of vibration or that which produces sound. It is hence reasonable to represent the dynamic aspect of the force functioning in a sound (either singly or in a combination of letters of the alphabet) by visualizing the effect it produces, in other words, a “verboscape”1. A sound vibration also produces heat, light, magnetism, and electricity, and therefore, naturally, some action2.

Further, there are three basic cosmic principles (tattvas) in the creation of the universe: Fire or transforming energy (Agni); water or sperm or fluidity principle (Apa); earth or solidity principle (Kshiti). Each and every matter of physical creation is constituted of all these three principles in different proportions. Later, these three principles were developed into five, their colors visualized and their patterns were depicted artistically; they were also described with reference to certain animals in whom a similar function of the principles were manifested prominently. I give below a brief description of these with a view towards understanding the symbolic representations:

  1. Vyoman or Akasha i.e., the sky or space continuum. This is likened to the breath emerging and spreading out of the body. The sound is an aspirated “H” where the pattern is a sprouting seed and represented by the two branches of a twig. Its animal reference is the function of a duck or hawk and is represented as a bird or simply by its two wings bent as in flight.
  2. Vayu or air i.e., the life-movement principle. Its visual pattern is that of the whirling, sweeping and vibration of the air; represented as “Y” and likened to the action produced on wheat stalks by a storm. Its animal symbol is that of a spotted barking deer on the run.
  3. Tejas or fire-energy i.e., the transforming energy or the vital energy, as life is associated with fire. Its pattern is the flame at the tip of a wick (“R”) or a torch made of twigs. This is represented by the rays of the sun and constitutes three parallel lines representing in turn the three colors, white, ultra-violet (or purple), and golden which make up the brilliance of the sun. It is said that every flame of fire has three similar rays in it and Agni is always spoken of as three (the holy trinity) and is synonymous with that numeral. Now, the flame of a fire naturally flickers, seemingly to jump up and down and yet to move on like that of a lamb or kid; hence the animal symbol of the fire-energy is a ram or kid/lamb. This is the Egyptian Ammon.
  4. Apa i.e., water or fluidity principle or that which soothes. This is the life-germ, sperm or seed principle. Its pattern is a bubble of water, a drop of sperm or an ovum. It is also represented by the udder of a cow and its animal representation is a shark-like creature representing the life-germ in the spermatozoon (“V”).
  5. Kshiti or the solidity principle. Its pattern is the undulating structure of the earth or a plough (“L). Its animal representation is a black elephant. It is also depicted as a serpent (a sine wave – icon of physical electricity and the prototype of the universal creative energy) in three and a half coils or as a tortoise with a hard shell.

Thus, the cosmic organization for the creation of the Universe is represented by a jumble of letters H-Y-R-V-L. It is also represented by a congregation of the animals, duck, deer, ram, shark, and elephant or tortoise in a circle, similar to the solar zodiac which is represented by twelve animals seated in a circle. Now, according to Indian (Vedic) philosophy, out of the core of the pre-creation nucleus develops the sky-principle which is, of course, associated with the spirit of expansiveness (Brahma) which again is associated with stretching or moving forward, a kind of force. This is the vital life breath known as Prana (pra – forward, ana – movement) and also the dynamism of the Cosmos. On this basis, the plan for the creation of the universe may be represented by the five letters H-Y-R-V-L as stated above, and the Spirit or the god behind it by Y-H-V or Y-H-V-H. He is the supreme and only God whom Moses recognized and worshipped as Yehova or Jehovah.

Peter Galatin, who in 1520 published the form "Jehovah", did not understand that the Scribes had replaced the word Yahweh with Adonai, as an attempt to prevent the true Name being pronounced. Thus Jehovah – though a word widely used by Jehovah's Witnesses today – is not an accurate transliteration of the Name of the Hebrew mighty one, which is YHWH.

Derivation

Putative etymology

The Tetragrammaton at the church of St. Marri at Paris, near the Centre Pompidou.

Jahveh or Yahweh is apparently an example of a common type of Hebrew proper names which have the form of the 3rd pers. sing. of the verb. e.g. Jabneh (name of a city), Jabin, Jamlek, Jiptah (Jephthah), &c. Most of these really are verbs, the suppressed or implicit subject being 'el, "numen, god", or the name of a god; cf. Jabneh and Jabne-el, Jiptah and Jiptah-el.

The ancient explanations of the name proceed from Exod. iii. 14, 15, where "Yahweh[2] hath sent me" in v 15 corresponds to "Ehyeh hath sent me" in v. 14, thus seeming to connect the name Yahweh with the Hebrew verb hayah, "to become, to be". The Jewish interpreters found in this the promise that God would be with his people (cf. v. 12) in future oppressions as he was in the present distress, or the assertion of his eternity, or eternal constancy; the Alexandrian translation 'Eγω ειμι ο ων. . . ' O ων απεσταλκεν με προς υμας understands it in the more metaphysical sense of God's absolute being. Both interpretations, "He (who) is (always the same);" and , "He (who) is (absolutely the truly existent);" import into the name all that they profess to find in it; the one, the religious faith in God's unchanging fidelity to his people, the other, a philosophical conception of absolute being which is foreign both to the meaning of the Hebrew verb and to the force of the tense employed.

Modern scholars have sometimes found in the name the expression of the aseity[3] of God; sometimes of his reality in contrast to the imaginary gods of the heathen.

Another explanation, which appears first in Jewish authors of the Middle Ages and has found wide acceptance in recent times, derives the name from the causative of the verb: "He (who) causes things to be, gives them being; or calls events into existence, brings them to pass", with many individual modifications of interpretation "creator", "life giver", "fulfiller of promises". A serious objection to this theory in every form is that the verb hayah, "to be" has no causative stem in Hebrew; to express the ideas which these scholars find in the name Yahweh the language employs altogether different verbs.

Another tradition regards the name as coming from three verb forms sharing the same root YWH, the words HYH haya היה: "He was"; HWH howê הוה: "He is"; and YHYH yihiyê יהיה: "He will be". This is supposed to show that God is timeless, as some have translated the name as "The Eternal One". Other interpretations include the name as meaning "I am the One Who Is." This can be seen in the traditional Jewish account of the "burning bush" commanding Moses to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM (אהיה) has sent you." (Exodus 3:13-14) Some suggest: "I AM the One I AM" אהיה אשר אהיה, or "I AM whatever I need to become". This may also fit the interpretation as "He Causes to Become." Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists" or "He who causes to exist". Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible, which is based on the King James Version, says that the term "Jehovah" means "The Existing One."

Spinoza, in his Theologico-Political Treatise (Chap.2) asserts the derivation of "Jahweh" from "Being". He writes that "Moses conceived the Deity as a Being Who has always existed, does exist, and always will exist, and for this cause he calls Him by the name Jehovah, which in Hebrew signifies these three phases of existence." Following Spinoza, Constantin Brunner translates the Shema (Deut. 2-4) as, "Hear, O Israel, Being is our God, Being is One."

This assumption that Yahweh is derived from the verb "to be", as seems to be implied in Exod. iii. 14 seq., is not, however, free from difficulty. "To be" in the Hebrew of the Old Testament is not hawah, as the derivation would require, but hayah; and we are thus driven to the further assumption that hawah belongs to an earlier stage of the language, or to some older speech of the forefathers of the Israelites.

This hypothesis is not intrinsically improbable (and in Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew, "to be" is hawa); however, adopting this theory implies that, using the name Hebrew in the historical sense, Yahweh is not a Hebrew name. And, inasmuch as nowhere in the Old Testament, outside of Exod. iii., is there the slightest indication that the Israelites connected the name of their God with the idea of "being" in any sense, it may fairly be questioned whether, if the author of Exod. 14 seq., intended to give an etymological interpretation of the name Yahweh,[4] his etymology is any better than many other paronomastic explanations of proper names in the Old Testament, or than, say, the connection of the name Aπολλων (Apollo) with απολουων, απολυων in Plato's Cratylus, or popular derivations from απολλυμι = "I lose (transitive)" or "I destroy".

"I am"

Mishearings and misunderstandings of this explanation has led to a popular idea that "Yahweh" means "I am", resulting in God, and by colloquial extension sometimes anything which is very dominant in its area [2], being called "the great I AM".

Another possibility according to the Complete Jewish Bible by author David H. Stern, proposes that the Tetragrammaton be pronounced letter for letter in Hebrew and that the name of God should be rendered by spelling out the four letters, "Yud He Vav He", the meaning assumed to be "I am that I am" or "I am Who I am", as revealed to Moses in the Torah (Exodus 3:14).

From a verb meaning "destroy" or similar?

A root hawah is represented in Hebrew by the nouns howah (Ezek., Isa. xlvii. II) and hawwah (Ps., Prov., Job) "disaster, calamity, ruin."[5] The primary meaning is probably "sink down, fall", in which sense (common in Arabic) the verb appears in Job xxxvii. 6 (of snow falling to earth).

A Catholic commentator of the 16th century, Hieronymus ab Oleastro, seems to have been the first to connect the name "Jehova" with "howah" interpreting it as "contritio sive pernicies" (destruction of the Egyptians and Canaanites). Daumer, adopting the same etymology, took it in a more general sense: Yahweh, as well as Shaddai, meant "Destroyer", and fitly expressed the nature of the terrible god who he identified with Moloch.

The derivation of Yahweh from hawah is formally unimpeachable, and is adopted by many recent[6] scholars, who proceed, however, from the primary sense of the root rather than from the specific meaning of the nouns. The name is accordingly interpreted, He (who) falls (baetyl, βαιτυλος, meteorite); or causes (rain or lightning) to fall (storm god); or casts down (his foes, by his thunderbolts). It is obvious that if the derivation be correct, the significance of the name, which in itself denotes only "He falls" or "He fells", must be learned, if at all, from early Semitic conceptions of the nature of Yahweh rather than from etymology.

The term Jehovah is a compound word in Hebrew. The first word of Jehovah is the Hebrew letter "yod", commonly printed "Je", pronounced "ye" (as in yes). "Ye" is a common Hebrew prefix, meaning third person future (he/she will). The name we know as Jesus was origionally Yeshua/Yeshu in Hebrew/Aramaic which was shortened from Yehoshua(Joshua). The name Yeshua is also a compound Hebrew word with the same prefix, the first Hebrew letter is "yod", pronounced "ye" which means third person future (he/she will); "shua" (shortened from "hoshua") means save or help. Yeshua/Yehoshua literally means "He will save" commonly translated in a single word, "salvation". In the term Jehovah, "ye" is a Hebrew prefix that means third person future (he/she will); hovah is a Hebrew noun meaning "ruin","desaster" or "destruction" (Strong’s Hebrew number 1943). Jehovah literally means "He will bring Destruction" or "The Destroyer" which is the opposite of "The Creator" or "I exist (I need nothing to sustain me.)". The Hebrew noun, hovah or howah (Strong’s Hebrew number 1943) meaning: ruin, disaster and destruction as in Ezekiel 7:26 and Isaiah 47:11. Similar to the Hebrew noun, havah or hawah (Strong’s Hebrew number 1942) meaning: ruin, destruction and calamity; or evil desire as in Job 6:2 and 6:30 which is not an attribute of the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible."[7] The primary meaning is probably "sink down, fall", in which sense (common in Arabic) the verb appears in Job xxxvii. 6 (of snow falling to earth).

Social theory

Vadim Cherny notes several ancient transcriptions of Tetragrammaton as Iao, among other arguments, to suggest that Tetragrammaton could not possibly be a meaningful Hebrew word. Cherny treats Tetragrammaton as initialism from Hebrew agglutinative suffixes for "I, you, he" and suggests that YHWH means "Hebrew community." [8]

Scholars in the 19th century discussed over what sphere of nature Yahweh originally presided. Some recognized in him a storm god, a theory with which the derivation of the name from Hebrew hawah or Arabic hawa well accords (see also the Book of Job chapters 37-38). The association of Yahweh with storm and fire is frequent in the Old Testament. The thunder is the voice of Yahweh, the lightning his arrows, and the rainbow his bow. The revelation at Sinai is amid the awe-inspiring phenomena of tempest. Yahweh leads Israel through the desert in a pillar of cloud and fire. He kindles Elijah's altar by lightning, and translates the prophet in a chariot of fire. See also Judg. v. 4 seq.. In this way, he seems to have usurped the attributes of the Canaanite god Baal Hadad. In Ugarit, the struggle between Baal and Yam, suggests that Baal's brother Ya'a was a water divinity - the god of Rivers (Nahar) and of the Sea (Yam).

In Old Testament portrayals of Yahweh during the time of ancient Israel, he often acts as the ‘Divine Warrior’. He has supreme power over the world and has named the Israelites as his people, so protects them from their enemies. In the Song of Deborah, an old poem found in Judges 5, there is a story of Yahweh’s power triumphing over the formidable armies of the kings of Canaan. A similar theme is seen in 1 Sam. 2:4-8, where professional forces are destroyed by Yahweh. Because of this, Israel’s political identity centers on Yahweh; they are free from the rule of their enemies because of him. In return, their duty is to love him and serve him and him alone. Furthermore, they were also supposed to rely only on him. Yahweh’s power was their sole defense against the outside world. If they attempted to take up arms and fight for themselves, or express power in traditional ways by building walls or starting wars, they were in effect being unfaithful to Yahweh. As the Divine Warrior, Yahweh would ward them during times of hardship and they would be safe so long as they remained under his protection and stayed faithful. [9]

Many religions today do not use the name Yahweh as much as they did in the past. The original Hebrew name יהוה YHWH appeared almost 7,000 times in the Old Testament, but is often replaced in popular Bibles (such as the King James Bible or New American Standard Bible) with all caps or small caps "LORD God" (for YHWH Elohim, Jehovah God), "Lord Template:GOD" (for Adonai YHWH, Lord Jehovah), "LORD of hosts" (for YHWH Sabaoth, Jehovah of hosts), or just "LORD" (for single instances of YHWH, Jehovah). The Christian denomination that most commonly uses the name "Jehovah" is that of the Jehovah's Witnesses while The Assemblies of Yahweh are the only group which exclusively and consistently use the sacred names (Yahweh and Yahshua). Both believe that God's personal name should not be over-shadowed by the above titles. Jehovah Witnesses often refer to Psalms 83:18 as a common place in most translations to find the name Jehovah still used in place of "LORD" , whilst the Assemblies of Yahweh often refer to Psalms 68:4 where the word YAH is retained, the first syllable of the Name of Yahweh. Both groups find justification for its use in Joel 2:32.

Cultus

A more fundamental question is whether the name Yahweh originated among the Israelites or was adopted by them from some other people and speech.[10]

The biblical author of the history of the sacred institutions (P) expressly declares that the name Yahweh was unknown to the patriarchs (Exod. vi. 3), and the much older Israelite historian (E) records the first revelation of the name to Moses (Exod. iii. 13-15), apparently following a tradition according to which the Israelites had not been worshippers of Yahweh before the time of Moses, or, as he conceived it, had not worshipped the god of their fathers under that name.

The revelation of the name to Moses was made at a mountain sacred to Yahweh, (the mountain of God) far to the south of Canaan, in a region where the forefathers of the Israelites had never roamed, and in the territory of other tribes. Long after the settlement in Canaan this region continued to be regarded as the abode of Yahweh (Judg. v. 4; Deut. xxxiii. 2 sqq.; I Kings xix. 8 sqq. &c).

Moses is closely connected with the tribes in the vicinity of the holy mountain. According to one account, he married a daughter of the priest of Midian (Exod. ii. 16 sqq.; iii. 1). It is to this mountain he led the Israelites after their deliverance from Egypt. There his father-in-law met him, and extolling Yahweh as greater than all the gods, offered sacrifices, at which the chief men of the Israelites were his guests. In the holy mountain the religion of Yahweh was revealed through Moses, and the Israelites pledged themselves to serve God according to its prescriptions.

It appears, therefore, that in the tradition followed by the Israelite historians, the tribes within whose pasture lands the mountain of God stood were worshipers of Yahweh before the time of Moses. The surmise that the name Yahweh belongs to their speech, rather than to that of Israel, is a significant possibility.

One of these tribes was Midian, in whose land the mountain of God lay. The Kenites also, with whom another tradition connects Moses, seem to have been worshipers of Yahweh.

It is probable that Yahweh was at one time worshiped by various tribes south of Palestine, and that several places in that wide territory (Horeb, Sinai, Kadesh, &c.) were sacred to him. The oldest and most famous of these, the mountain of God, seems to have lain in Arabia, east of the Red Sea. From some of these peoples and at one of these holy places, a group of Israelite tribes adopted the religion of Yahweh, the God who, by the hand of Moses, had delivered them from Egypt.[11]

The tribes of this region probably belonged to some branch of the Arabian desert Semitic stock, and accordingly, the name Yahweh has been connected with the Arabic hawa, the void (between heaven and earth), "the atmosphere, or with the verb hawa, cognate with Heb; Hawah, "sink, glide down (through space)"; and hawwa "blow (wind)". "He rides through the air, He blows" (Wellhausen), would be a fit name for a god of wind and storm. There is, however, no certain evidence that the Israelites in historical times had any consciousness of the primitive significance of the name.

However, the 'h' in the root h-w-h, h-y-h = "be, become" and in "Yahweh" is the ordinary glottal 'h' (spelled with a He), and the 'h' in the roots ħ-y-w = "live" and ħ-w-ʔ = "air, blow (of wind)" is a pharyngeal 'h' (spelled with a Heth) which is usually transcribed as 'h' with a dot under.

Yahu

The caves in which the scrolls were found

According to a theory, Yahweh, or Yahu, Yaho,[12] is the name of a god worshipped throughout the whole, or a great part, of the area occupied by the Western Semites.

In its earlier form this opinion rested chiefly on certain misinterpreted testimonies in Greek authors about a god 'Iαω and was conclusively refuted by Baudissin; recent adherents of the theory build more largely on the occurrence in various parts of this territory of proper names of persons and places which they explain as compounds of Yahu or Yah.[13]

The explanation is in most cases simply an assumption of the point at issue; some of the names have been misread; others are undoubtedly the names of Jews.

There remain, however, some cases in which it is highly probable that names of non-Israelites are really compounded with Yahweh. The most conspicuous of these is the king of Hamath who in the inscriptions of Sargon (722-705 B.C.) is called Yaubi'di and Ilubi'di (compare Jehoiakim-Eliakim). Azriyau of Jaudi, also, in inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III (745-728 B.C.), who was formerly supposed to be Uzziah of Judah, is probably a king of the country in northern Syria known to us from the Zenjirli inscriptions as Ja'di.

Magic papyri

Some claim that the spellings of the Tetragrammaton occur among the many combinations and permutations of names of powerful agents that occur in Egyptian magical writings.[14] One of these forms is the heptagram ιαωουηε[15]

In the magical texts, Iave (Jahveh Sebaoth), and Iαβα, occurs frequently.[16] In an Ethiopic list of magical names of Jesus, purporting to have been taught by him to his disciples, Yawe[17] [18] is found.

Mesopotamian influence

Friedrich Delitzsch brought into notice three tablets, of the age of the first dynasty of Babylon, in which he read the names of Ya- a'-ve-ilu, Ya-ve-ilu, and Ya-u-um-ilu ("Yahweh is God"), and which he regarded as conclusive proof that Yahweh was known in Babylonia before 2000 B.C.; he was a god of the Semitic invaders in the second wave of migration, who were, according to Winckler and Delitzsch, of North Semitic stock (Canaanites, in the linguistic sense).[19]

We should thus have in the tablets evidence of the worship of Yahweh among the Western Semites at a time long before the rise of Israel. The reading of the names is, however, extremely uncertain, not to say improbable, and the far-reaching inferences drawn from them carry no conviction.[20]

In a tablet attributed to the 14th century B.C. which Sellin found in the course of his excavations at Tell Ta'annuk (the city Taanach of the O.T.) a name occurs which may be read Ahi-Yawi (equivalent to Hebrew Ahijah);[21] if the reading be correct, this would show that Yahweh was worshipped in Central Palestine before the Israelite conquest. Genesis 14:17 describes a meeting between Melchizedek the king/priest of Salem and Abaraham. Both these pre-conquest figures are described as worshipping the same Most High God later identified as Yahweh.

The reading is, however, only one of several possibilities. The fact that the full form Yahweh appears, whereas in Hebrew proper names only the shorter Yahu and Yah occur, weighs somewhat against the interpretation, as it does against Delitzsch's reading of his tablets.

It would not be at all surprising if, in the great movements of populations and shifting of ascendancy which lie beyond our historical horizon, the worship of Yahweh should have been established in regions remote from those which it occupied in historical times; but nothing which we now know warrants the opinion that his worship was ever general among the Western Semites.

Many attempts have been made to trace the West Semitic Yahu back to Babylonia. Thus Delitzsch formerly derived the name from an Akkadian god, I or Ia; or from the Semitic nominative ending, Yau;[22] but this deity has since disappeared from the pantheon of Assyriologists. Bottero speculates that the West Semitic Yah/Ia, in fact is a version of the Babylonian God Ea (Enki), a view given support by the earliest finding of this name at Ebla during the reign of Ebrum, at which time the city was under Mesopotamian hegemony of Sargon of Akkad.

Yahweh's Likely Ancestry

During the 1980s, Kamal Salibi, who later took up the position of Director of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan (Refer link below), revived a number of credible nineteenth century propositions that suggested the Old Testament was in fact set in western Arabia, as opposed to the then accepted location of Palestine. During his investigations, which employ state of the art decoding methods on the original Hebrew consonantal text - as opposed to the usual, less arduous, practice of employing vocalised translations made by Jewish Masoretes as a base -, he not only found that Biblical locations existed in western Arabia, but that they were logically situated with respect to biblical events. This discovery, which explained why nothing convincing had ever been found to link Palestinian locations with biblical records, spurred him on to decode an untold wealth of information relating to the Old Testament. Refer The Bible Came from Arabia (1985), Secrets of the Bible People (1988) and his later work The Historicity of Biblical Israel: Studies in 1 & 2 Samuel (1998).

In Exodus, it states that the Israelites, while under the guidance of Moses, had many gods, many of which they represented by gold and silver idols. It was not until Moses and the Israelites had their encounter with a dynamic, smoke covered and potentially retributional, mountain, that they adopted its local god as their own God, Yahweh. He was too good to be true - a god with a thunderous voice, of trumpets and fiery tantrums that proved him far more powerful than all of their other gods put together. But most importantly, a thunderous cloud covered the mountain - a feature that Moses' god had possessed throughout Exodus.

As Salibi points out in Secrets of the Bible People, it doesn't take much imagination to realise that Yahweh's mountain home was in fact a volcano, summit engulfed in smoke. Later we find Yahweh as a 'devouring fire' on top of the mountain, and some weeks later, after Moses had returned from his second stint on the mountain, he warns his people that whoever touches the mountain it shall stone to death, be it beast or man. Three days later we find the mountain quaking. There were thunder and lightning. The mountain was all in smoke. Yahweh had descended on it in fire, and smoke rose as the smoke of a furnace. A better description of a volcano is hard to imagine.

For the conventional biblical scholar, the major shortcoming of these passages is that Palestine, the conventional setting for all of these events is, and was not, a volcanic area! Salibi, on the other hand, is handed Mount Elohim ['mountain of the gods'; which the bible mentions in relation to Moses, and is located in volcanically active area of Yemen] on a plate, as the home of Yahweh. A river having essentially the name of Sinai still exists in the vicinity, not far from a ridge (possibly biblical Mt. Sinai) where the Israelites watched the 'fireworks'.

When the Israelites headed back into what is now western Arabia, such an omnipotent god - the undisputed creator of the entire world - was too good to leave behind. Moses therefore 'persuaded' him to leave his volcanic home and join them, which he did, deposing the original pantheon of Israelite gods [making them the first monotheists in recorded history] and travelled with them in unheard-of luxury, as described in Exodus 25-31. To this day, Jews, Christians and Muslims still worship Yahweh, even though He has been an invisible God since being divorced from His once mighty volcano.

[Note that Salibi's Arabian theory of biblical historicity, of which the above comprises a minute amount, has not been disputed by scholars of any of the abovementioned religions in any material way whatsoever. The total of their objections, since Salibi first published his findings in 1985, are that: as Salibi's theory departs from the accepted Jewish translations of the original Hebrew - which had been a dead language for a thousand years before their translation - they don't like it! Therefore, it is inconceivable to them that it could have the slightest merit. Equally, it should be realised that Salibi's theory is simply that, and eligible to be disproved at any time. At present though, it is the only theory to unite the bible as written, to its writers, their lives, and their environment.]

Blasphemy

If the Name of Yahweh was used by Jesus (Heb. Yahshua) and his disciples, they would have most probably been accused of blasphemy by the Jewish authorities. .[23] The term “Power” used in Matthew 26:63-66was a substitute for the Divine Name used by devout Jews. Therefore, it is possible that Jesus (Heb. Yahshua) was executed for using this term. Pronouncing the Name was considered taboo by Jews, see “Sacred to Jews” section. The Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition Bible - a Assemblies of Yahweh publication - “restores” the Hebrew sacred Names to the text.

Not just a title of God in scripture

Though God is given numerous titles in the Bible (such as "God", "Giver of plenty", "Sovereign Lord", "Creator", "Father", "the Almighty" and "the Most High"), many people believe God's personality and attributes are fully summed up and expressed in His personal name.

Jehovah is probably the most commonly known, though inaccurate, English pronunciation of the divine name; "Yahweh" (also inaccurate) is also used by some scholars. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts present the name in the form of four consonants, commonly called the Tetragrammaton (from Greek tetra-, meaning "four," and gram'ma, "letter"). These four letters (יהוה) may be transliterated into English as YHWH or JHVH.

Like much of Christianity, Judaism forbids to "take the name of God in vain" by using it. However in Judaism, this restriction is much broader and amounts to a taboo on pronouncing the ineffable name. When reading Torah (or some other religious text) aloud, Adonai is read instead of "Jahovah"; the name itself is nicked "shem ha-meforash" - "the interpreted name" ("ha-shem", "the name", is one of God's other names in Judaism). Before writing down texts that include it, a Torah script writer has to make a special ceremony of purification. As Rabbinical sources tell us, even in ancient times the name was pronounced only once a year - on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and only by the High Priest of the Temple in Jerusalem. The tradition of High priesthood ended, however, in 70 A.D., as the Temple was burned.

Another God

Main article: Yahwism

A theory about polytheism sustains there is more than one God, and that, by some internal or external pressure, the original (up and after Moses) was replaced by another. This cycle may have continued until close to present. This would explain why the name of Yahweh is present in the Bible, and yet is so careful on wording or why special protective rituals are done before this. It would certainly explain the banning of the word on 8 August, 2008, thus bringing a hoped permanent closure to the - claimed until then - "minor detail".

Following that time, legends circled about the power of Yahweh and the welfare invoking him brings, which were swiftly countered by the Church's innuendo on the dangers of such an act, rumor spread throughout the entire clerical class, although the Bible itself contained His name as that of God. As such, although it was believed at that time Yahweh's ability to enrich one's life was stronger than the God most prayed to, the perspective was rarely followed, with strong repercussion from society, seen as witchcraft, to those caught doing it.

It is said that to this day, the one that invokes the name of Yahweh with an open heart and pure purpose, and which gives him his belief, has the possibility of a closer relationship with a God, and bigger chances of getting his wishes fulfilled.

Other Uses

  • "Yahweh" is the name of a song on U2's eleventh studio album.
  • In the movie Bruce Almighty, "Yahweh" is the name of the fictional prayer-email system the title character creates, a play on the web site Yahoo!.

References

  1. ^ [Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906:Names of God/YHWH http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=N]
  2. ^ Footnote #13 from page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "This transcription will be used henceforth."
  3. ^ Footnote #14 from Page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "A-se-itas, a scholastic Latin expression for the quality of existing by oneself.
  4. ^ Footnote #15 from page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "The critical difficulties of these verses need not be discussed here. See W.R. Arnold, "The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14," Journal of Biblical Literature, XXIV. (1905), 107-165."
  5. ^ Footnote #16 from page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "Cf. also hawwah, "desire", Mic. vii. 3; Prov. x. 3."
  6. ^ recent in 1911 - this is what the 1911 E.B. wrote
  7. ^ Footnote #16 from page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "Cf. also hawwah, "desire", Mic. vii. 3; Prov. x. 3."
  8. ^ Vadim Cherny [1]
  9. ^ Walsh J.P.M. The Mighty From Their Thrones. Fortress Press. Philadelphia. 1987.
  10. ^ Footnote #1 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "See HEBREW RELIGION"
  11. ^ Footnote #2 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "The divergent Judaean tradition, according to which the forefathers had worshipped Yahweh from time immemorial, may indicate that Judah and the kindred clans had in fact been worshippers of Yahweh before the time of Moses."
  12. ^ Footnote #3 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "The form Yahu, or Yaho, occurs not only in composition, but by itself; see Aramaic Papyri discovered at Assaan, B 4,6,II; E 14; J 6. This doubtless is the original of 'Iαω, frequently found in Greek authors and in magical texts as the name of the God of the Jews."
  13. ^ Footnote #4 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "See a collection and critical estimate of this evidence by Zimmern, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 465 sqq."
  14. ^ B. Alfrink, La prononciation 'Jehova' du tétragramme, O.T.S. V (1948) 43-62.
  15. ^ K. Preisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, Leipzig-Berlin, I, 1928 and II, 1931
  16. ^ Footnote #9 from page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "See Deissmann, Bibelstudien, 13 sqq."
  17. ^ Footnote #10 from Page 312 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "See Driver, Studia Biblica, I. 20."
  18. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition (New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1910-11), vol. 15, pp. 312, in the Article “JEHOVAH”
  19. ^ Footnote #5 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "Babel und Bibel, 1902. The enormous, and for the most part ephemeral, literature provoked by Delitzsch's lecture cannot be cited here.
  20. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition (New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1910-11), vol. 15, pp. 312, in the Article “JEHOVAH”.
  21. ^ Footnote #6 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "Denkschriften d. Wien. Akad., L. iv. p. 115 seq. (1904)."
  22. ^ Footnote #7 from Page 313 of the 1911 E.B. reads: "Wo lag das Paradies? (1881), pp. 158-166."
  23. ^ See page 3 of the magazine “The Sacred Name Broadcaster”, Calling Upon His Name, [10’1982]"by Elder Jacob O Meyer, a publication of the Assemblies of Yahweh ©.
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