Some in this group have repeatedly tried to discredit Jehovahs witnesses on many occasions with falsified information and when spoken to on such things have only ignored my mention of such inaccuracies. This post deals with one such inaccuracy. This was posted by a brother of mine whose name I will not mention until he affirms he is ok with making it known. J in Hebrew? אֱלֹהִים Of course there is no letter J in Hebrew, as this letter, as it stands is English…and there are those who insist that Yahweh is the correct name and pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, hence it is rendered into English as YHWH and those of the sacred name camp insist that Jehovah is not the true name or pronunciation, but is such really the case, and do those who insist that Yahweh is the correct form…have a valid case or is their case built on sand? This short paper, is dealing with just two points and they are: a, Is there a symbol in Hebrew for the letter “j”? b, Is there in Hebrew the phonetic sound for “j”? These are two issues that will be discussed, whilst touching on other points! Those of the Yahweh only camp will deny such (a and b) but are they building their house on sand or solid rock! My contention is to show that Yahweh is an impossible name for God and here are just some of the reasons why! The letter “j” (lowercase) was invented c.1200 CE the letter “w” was invented c. 1400 CE and the name Yahweh is a modern construct, so when the Yahweh camp insist that Jehovah is not the true name or pronunciation and even stronger case can be made for Yahweh not being the true name or pronunciation, because, certain of its letters did not exist, literally Yahweh was impossible, also to be noted, is that the lowercase “s” like other letters was not invented until the 1500s and the lowercase “u” was not used as a vowel, also until the 1500s and that incidentally, puts to rest the name for Jesus being “yahshua” by the sacred namers, as can be seen, as certain English letters carry history with them i.e. where were certain letters in English before the 1500s? One of the other points I wish to make, is that, even though certain English letters did not exist before the 1500s, did the ‘sounds’ (phonetics) used to represent them exist in antiquity, the answer is yes, only the symbol, image, emblem…used to represent such letters changed. Here is an extract from William Tyndale’s 1530 Pentateuch and see how strange it looks compared to modern English and the reader can be forgiven for being somewhat confused, but note how certain words are pronounced: Ex 5:18-23; 6:2, 3 Tyndale “18 Goo therfore and worke, for there shall no strawe be geuen you, and yet see that ye delyuer the hole tale of brycke. 19 when the officers of the childern of Israel sawe them silfe in shrode case (in that he sayde ye shall minysh nothinge of youre dalye makige of brycke) 20 than they mett Moses and Aaro stondinge in there waye as they came out fro Pharao, 21 and sayde vnto them: The Lorde loke vnto youand iudge, for ye haue made the sauoure of vs stincke in the sighte of Pharao and of his servauntes, and haue put a swerde in to their handes to slee vs. 22 Moses returned vnto the Lorde and sayde: Lorde wherfore dealest thou cruelly with this people: and wherfore hast thou sent me? 23 For sence I came to Pharao to speke in thy name, he hath fared foull with this folke, ad yet thou hast not delyuered thy people at all.” “And God spake vnto Moses sayng vnto him: I am the Lorde, 3 and I appeared vnto Abraham,Isaac and Iacob an allmightie God: but in my name Iehouahwas I not knowne vnto them.” Of course, no English letters exit in biblical Hebrew, but that is not my point here and the point being made is this, does Hebrew have the equivalent of the English “j” sound and the answer is yes, biblical Hebrew does have the phonetic English sound for the English “j” and that Hebrew sound is the letter “jot” and the “jot” also known as “yod” is the smallest of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet, it is called a “tittle” (not title…) and the reader may wonder what on earth is a “tittle” is! A “tittle” is a small or the smallest part of something and in our case, since we are dealing with Hebrew and English, we can see a “tittle” (also known as a superscript in English) can be seen in the letters “j” and “i” notice the little dot above each letter, as such a dot is a “tittle” or as we might say, a “superscript”, as it is written above the two letters, here is an example of a “tittle” from the KJV bible at Math 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. The use of the expression “one jot or one tittle” is to show that even the smallest thing, matter is given the greatest attention, nothing is missed…! At the top is the Hebrew word for God, notice the little squiggly bit second form the left, it looks a bit like an apostrophe [ ’ ] this is the Hebrew letter “jot” [yod] and is also attached to the ends of Hebrew letters, in order to distinguish them from other Hebrew letters, as some Hebrew letters look very similar and confusion may result if the “jot” was not used…! Here are some examples of the use of the “tittle” [jot]: בּ (behth) similar to כּ (kaph) and ח (chehth) similar to ה (he) If the “tittle” [jot] was not used at the corner (upper left) in the above examples, the reader may mistake one letter for another letter, hence the use in order to avoid any confusion! Back to Tyndale? Tyndale was taught Hebrew by some of the best Hebrew scholars of his day and quickly recognised the “j” sound from reading the Hebrew scriptures and the English of Tyndale’s day also had a “j” sound, Tyndale quickly recognised the similarly or we could say the sameness of sound between the Hebrew and English sounds (phonetics) Tyndale recognised that the Hebrew “j” sound agreed with the Hebrew letter “jot” [yod] and Tyndale translated “jot” as the English letter “i” and “I” “yet, you, youre, ye, iudge, Isaac, Iacob, Iehouah” As can readily be seen above in the examples from Tyndale’s Ex 5:18-23; 6:2, 3, the “y” sound and symbol in English already existed and had its own distinct symbol and sound, much like our modern English “yet, yacht, yes” when we come to the letter “i” or “I” (uppercase or lowercase, makes no difference the sound will remain just the same) but what about: “iudge, Isaac, Iacob, Iehouah”? Here we see immediately a twofold use of the letter “i” and “I”. Tyndale shows without a doubt, that the “i” is the equivalent of “j” and “J” and that when the lowercase “i” was used a consonant such as we see in “Isaac, Ifrael” [f stands for s] clearly represented the ordinary sound of “i”, but when that same “i” appeared before a vowel it took on the sound of “j”, as in “iudge, Iehouh”, in Tyndale’s day the “i” or “I” had a double role, as it was simultaneously a consonant and/or a vowel, depending which letter it preceded, the same can be said for the letters “u” and “v” the two were interchangeable letters, one could be used as a representation of the other “vnto, vs” [unto, us] and then “u” used as a “v” as in “geuen, haue” and it was only in later periods, when English was still developing that distinctions between certain letters began to be made, “v” became a consonant, “u” a vowel and “i” and “I” gave way to the now distinct consonant “j” and “J” and even in the first KJV bible, of 1611 CE, “Jehovah” begins with an “I”, not a “J”, which superseded the use of the “I”. Conclusion Those who say that the name “Jehovah” is not a true representation of the name of God, have invented a fallacy, by concocting a name, such as the Yiddish “Yahweh”, which is itself of pagan Amoritic origin, handed on to the descendents of the Amorites, the Samaritans, who used the name of “Iabe” or “Iabai”, the two syllable name for the Amorite god “yawi” or “yawe” (spelled differently at times) and it was German scholars (hence the Yiddish) who coined the name “Yahweh”! As I said, this is a short paper and does not go into much depth, but mere used to show that the modern construct “Yahweh” is false and a clever invention to fool those not acquainted with the historical empirical detail!
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 22:47:48 +0000
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