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[RRD]

We often hear or read statements that we have no proof that the holy name appeared in the original Greek, or we are challenged to produce a scripture from the original Greek wherein we might find the holy name.

The problem with this kind of argument is that we do not have the original Greek; all we have are copies of the original Greek -- not the original Greek. One cannot prove anything either way by the original Greek, since we do not have the original Greek in order to prove what was originally written.

On the other hand, there is no record of Yahweh giving anyone authority to change the name of Yahweh (Jehovah) to Kurios. Jesus never claimed such an authority.

And the prophecy states that the Messiah would come in the name/authority of Yahweh, not the name/authority of a God by the name of Kurios. Yahweh said to Moses concerning the Messiah: "He shall speak in my name." (Deuteronomy 18:19) That the very name is involved is shown in Deuteronomy 18:20, since it speaks of a prophet who would speak in the name of other gods. Thus, it is indeed vital that Jesus be recognized as coming in the name and authority of Yahweh, not Kurios. "Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh!" (Psalm 118:26) "Kurios" (Lord) does not identify the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is a common title used not only of men, but also of false gods. Thus, if Jesus said he came in the name of Kurios, one could wonder who he meant. Consequently, I have no doubt in mind that that Jesus did not join with the rebellious Jews by substituting and taking away from his scriptural reference the most important name in universe in Matthew 23:39, or any other place. No one in the scriptures has ever been given authority to change the name of the Most High to Kurios, or Theos, or Dunamis, etc.

To use the word KURIOS, LORD, as a proper name of a God, is similar to replacing Baal (Lord, Master) for Yahweh. Yahweh spoke of the time when the fathers "forgot my name for Baal [Lord]." (Jeremiah 23:27) Isn't this what is happening with the substituting of the holy name with the name KURIOS (LORD)?

Later, rather than replacing Yahweh for Baal, the Jewish leadership began to again seek to cause the people to forget the most holy name by claiming it would be blasphemy to speak his name orally (except in certain sacred places and occasions), and thus proposed orally replacing the holy name with Adoni (my Lord) or Adonai (literally my lords, as plural intensive, Supreme or Superior Lord), rather than Baal (Lord, Master). Finally, sometime in the lifetime of Josephus, it appears that they went further in trying to get people to forget the most important name in universe by making it unlawful to speak the holy name at all. Are we to think that Jesus or the Bible writers would join in such a conspiracy to remove the Most Holy name in the universe?

When Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, stated and identified Himself by his name to Moses, what did he say? "This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations." (Exodus 3:15) He did not say that this will my for now, and later my name will be something else. He said it was his eternal name. He never gave anyone authority to change that name. Kurios does not identify the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since that word could be also applied to false gods.

Exodus 3:15 God said moreover to Moses, "You shall tell the children of Israel this, 'Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations." -- World English Bible translation.

Christian love,
Ronald

[freyd]

 The Messiah is NOT called "Adonai."

"Did you know that every language has "foreign" words? Foreign vocabulary is introduced into a language when the direct translation of culture-specific words just isn't possible.

In English, this happens all the time. Examples are:

    Bon Apatite (French)
    Coup d'état (French)
    Gazunteit (German)

In modern Hebrew, the same thing has occurred, as a result of the dominance of our English in our English speaking world. Here are some examples:

    Pseek'olog (Psychologist)
    Le'fasfex (To Fax a document)
    "Ata Lo Normali!" ("You are NOT a normal person!").

These Foreign words are called "Milim Lo'aziot." They are not Hebrew concepts at all, but rather English concepts expressed using Hebrew characters in a Hebrew dialect.

Back in the 2nd century BCE, when the Torah was being translated into what the then Greek speaking world called the Septuagint, they came across our Hebrew word for the ineffable four letter personal, private, up-close Name of G-d, which theology buffs call today, the Tetragrammaton (Tetra... from "four.")

In Hebrew, those four letters are Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [YHVH], but we Jews never pronounce that word, because its exact pronunciation has been lost to us. Rather than take a chance on breaking the commandments in the Torah not to take His Name in vain (Shm'ot [Ex] 20:7), or to profane His Holy Name, ViYikra [Lev] 22:32, we instead have developed a custom of saying either "Adonai," or "HaShem," when we read Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh on a written page.

It would be the same thing in English, if every time you saw the word "Coca-Cola" on the written page, you thought and said, "Poison" (which wouldn't be too far from the truth, would it?). Note that the words have no similarity in the constitution or order of their letters. Nevertheless, if you train yourself to say "Poison" every time you see the word "Coca-Cola," you would be doing exactly what Jews do when we read the word Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh.

So when the seventy-two Jewish elders (six from each of the twelve tribes) in Alexandria, Egypt, finished translating the first official copy of the Torah, which BTW took them seventy-two days, the work contained a number of "Lo'azit" (foreign) words within the Greek text. Some examples are:

    "Sabbata" for Shabbat, the Seventh day of the Jewish week.

    "Man" for Manna, the bread from heaven that bnei Israel ate in the desert, and

    "Kades Barne" for Kadesh Barnea, the place at which the 10 spies delivered their evil and rebellious report against taking possession of the Land of Israel.

Each of these words, could have been expressed using the then existing Greek vocabulary, but for some reason, the seventy-two choose to use "lo'azit" words.

Shabbat for example, could have been expressed as "khebdome," or the "seventh" day, but instead, they popularized a new Greek word, "Sabbata," which to this day, in the Greek language, means "Saturday."

But what do you suppose our seventy-two elders did when they came to the word Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [YHVH], the ineffable Name of G-d?

Well, they had a choice. They could have just done what the proud Anglo Saxons did centuries later... invent a new "foreign" word by attempting to pronounce the consonants, and then making up the interleaving vowels, however it fancied them. This might have yielded something senseless like "Jehovah," or some other similar fabrication. What would remain would be to just phonetically spell the thing out using Greek characters.

They could have done this. But, no, they choose a different path, probably precisely because these Jewish Elders had the wisdom to foresee that if they would have brought a pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton to the Gentile Greek speaking world, the result would have been an open door for bunch of Pagans to go running about desecrating, profaning and taking the Name of the Creator of the Universe in vain. "Who needs that mess?" I'm sure they reasoned.

So, when they saw the word Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh in the Torah, rather than a transliteration, they gave a simple translation, using the existing Greek generic word, "Kurios," which just means "Lord," or "Master."

Of course this generic Greek word already had a Hebrew counterpart, well established in its vocabulary, and so what they were doing was knowingly assigning two Hebrew meanings to one Greek original. But again, they probably felt that this was a better situation than opening the doors to the Gentiles to desecrate G-d's Name.

The Hebrew word which already expressed the idea of "Lord," or "Master" was "Adon." This word was simply a title given to any human King or Master who was deserving of, or demanded honor and/or respect. It became used through-out the Greek speaking world to describe any sovereign Ruler or Lord over men.

The only problem was that the Torah distinguished between human Kings, and the Holy and invisible Almighty G-d who ruled over all earthly Kings.

And so, the solution which our seventy-two Elders came up with was to combine three Greek words, whenever they wanted to refer to the ONE L-RD G-d, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh Himself, instead of some other earthly Master.

Those three words were "Kurios Ho Theos," (The L-RD G-d).

From this point one, history reveals that with regard to Hebrew, the Greek Language would never even attempt to invent an additional word or words which would positionally possess higher rank than Kurios (either used by itself, or in combination with other words). It simply had no need to do so. And the rest of the story is "tradition."

Of course, the Hellenized world of that day, wasn't exactly anticipating the advent of the Anglo-Saxon horde which would one day overrun them, and enlighten the world with, G-d help us all, ENGLISH.

Quite content without this prophecy, the Gentile Greek speaking world went on to steal and translate the rest of our [Hebrew] Bible, while depriving us [Hebrew speaking Jews] of the opportunity to 'proof' the text they had translated. Eventually they produced the entire Tenach [Tanakh - Older Testament] in Greek, some centuries later.

As for the New Testament... well, you all know the story on that score. Even if most of it was originally penned in Hebrew, all we have left today, are tattered old Greek manuscripts. Perhaps the Hellenizers of those early days really did foresee the advent of the ANGLO SAXON, but so hated the Jews, that they quickly got rid of the Hebrew evidence, so that we would all be forced to bow the knee to Greek, in order to understand our Bibles.............."

http://www.torahofmessiah.com/echad5.htm

[freyd]

"What is the true name of God is an issue surrounded by poor scholarship, made up names and a blurring of what the Scriptures do say....Many have argued that it is important to speak the true name citing various scripture verses as proof. Some people have proposed, that if you do not know or use the true name, then it is questionable whether you actually part of the family of God, and allude that one’s salvation may even be in question. A good analogy of this would be the men in Judges 12:6, who could not correctly pronounce Shibboleth, and so they were slain."

Yahweh, Yahwah, Yahawah, Yahovah, Yaheveh, Yehaweh, Yehowah, Yehowih, Yehwih, Yahuweh, Yahueh, Yahuah, Jahveh, Iabe, Iahueh, Iehouah, and Jehovah:

What is His Sacred Name or True Name?

"During the last few years, I have heard all sorts of opinions about the Name of God, how it should be pronounced, and the importance of its use. I have heard many different names used by many different groups, most of whom believe that they have the correct pronunciation, or true name. Some have even stated that the spirit has revealed the true name to them. The above list of names in the title of this article, represents only a small sample of the plethora of names that I have seen used over the years to identify the Almighty. Many of the people believe that their choice is the only name that should be used. Some groups believe that if you do not call on their specific name, you are addressing another god, which they say breaks several commandments. I have also witnessed groups that use their choice of the name as a sort of gnostic hammer, to pummel the less enlightened on every available occasion. I have spent the last four years or so, researching and reviewing this topic, and the information below is a condensed summary of my own personal findings.

The name Yahweh is the first rendering from YHWH that I will examine, because it has become so popular as of late. The pronunciation of Yahweh started to become popular in the scholarly circles around the mid to late 1800's. Before that time, Jehovah and other versions of it were the pronunciations most commonly used. The pronunciation of Yahweh was derived, based on a scholarly reconstruction from various early Greek writings. These Greek transliterations of the Hebrew YHWH were reportedly based on an original Samaritan pronunciation. After researching this claim, it appears that the scholars may have only casually examined the possibility that the Samaritans, like the traditional Jews, may have substituted another title when they came upon YHWH written in their Scriptures, so as to not speak the Name. While the Jews substituted Adonay when they came across YHWH while reading in the text, the Samaritans may have substituted the title yaphe/yafe (yaw-feh' ~H3303), which means beautiful. This may be where some of the early Greek writers first encountered the name IABE, which is where the scholarly re-construction of Yahweh originated. One modern Samaritan group has stated that the pronunciation of the Divine Name as Yahweh is inaccurate based upon the Samaritan substitution of yaphe/yafe, which was actually their attempt to avoid reading the Divine Name aloud. It should also be noted, that nowhere in the Hebrew Biblical texts is YHWH actually pointed to be read as Yahweh.  

There are some groups that are so fervently convinced that the true name is Yahweh, that they have chosen to call their messiah Yahwehshua, or other variations, using the truncated form of Yah as a prefix.(Yahshua, Yahushua, Yahuwshua,Yahuashua, Yahvahshua, Yahoshua, etc). Their reasoning for this is rooted in the Scripture where Jesus is quoted, in John 5:43, as saying,  “I have come in the name of My Father”. Due to this statement, they believe that He must then have part of the Fathers Name included in His Name. It should be noted that the many variations are not found in the Biblical Hebrew texts. What is found there, are the names Yehoshua (H3091) and the shortened form Yeshua (H3442-H3443). Because of this, many groups have alleged that the Masorites intentionally altered the vowel pointings, therefore, one must reference the unpointed proto Masoretic texts, or the paleo-Hebrew (derived from Phoenician script) for the correct pronunciation. It also should be noted that their chosen pronunciations can not be proven from those earlier unpointed Hebrew texts.

As a side note, I have noticed during my searching of the names in the Biblical Hebrew texts, that the proper names with the theophoric element of Yah or Yahu incorporated, use it as a suffix or ending, and not as a prefix. The common theophoric prefixes that are found in the Hebrew texts are Yeho, and the truncated form Yo. There are many Biblical Hebrew names that demonstrate these two prefixes. For example, from Strong's Concordance: Yehownathan (H3083), Yonathan (H3129), Yehowceph (H3084), Yoseph (H3130), Yehowshua (H3091)..........."

http://www.seekgod.ca/htname.htm

[RRD]

"What is the true name of God is an issue surrounded by poor scholarship, made up names and a blurring of what the Scriptures do say....Many have argued that it is important to speak the true name citing various scripture verses as proof. Some people have proposed, that if you do not know or use the true name, then it is questionable whether you actually part of the family of God, and allude that one’s salvation may even be in question. A good analogy of this would be the men in Judges 12:6, who could not correctly pronounce Shibboleth, and so they were slain."

Yahweh, Yahwah, Yahawah, Yahovah, Yaheveh, Yehaweh, Yehowah, Yehowih, Yehwih, Yahuweh, Yahueh, Yahuah, Jahveh, Iabe, Iahueh, Iehouah, and Jehovah:

What is His Sacred Name or True Name?

"During the last few years, I have heard all sorts of opinions about the Name of God, how it should be pronounced, and the importance of its use. I have heard many different names used by many different groups, most of whom believe that they have the correct pronunciation, or true name. Some have even stated that the spirit has revealed the true name to them. The above list of names in the title of this article, represents only a small sample of the plethora of names that I have seen used over the years to identify the Almighty. Many of the people believe that their choice is the only name that should be used. Some groups believe that if you do not call on their specific name, you are addressing another god, which they say breaks several commandments. I have also witnessed groups that use their choice of the name as a sort of gnostic hammer, to pummel the less enlightened on every available occasion. I have spent the last four years or so, researching and reviewing this topic, and the information below is a condensed summary of my own personal findings.

The name Yahweh is the first rendering from YHWH that I will examine, because it has become so popular as of late. The pronunciation of Yahweh started to become popular in the scholarly circles around the mid to late 1800's. Before that time, Jehovah and other versions of it were the pronunciations most commonly used. The pronunciation of Yahweh was derived, based on a scholarly reconstruction from various early Greek writings. These Greek transliterations of the Hebrew YHWH were reportedly based on an original Samaritan pronunciation. After researching this claim, it appears that the scholars may have only casually examined the possibility that the Samaritans, like the traditional Jews, may have substituted another title when they came upon YHWH written in their Scriptures, so as to not speak the Name. While the Jews substituted Adonay when they came across YHWH while reading in the text, the Samaritans may have substituted the title yaphe/yafe (yaw-feh' ~H3303), which means beautiful. This may be where some of the early Greek writers first encountered the name IABE, which is where the scholarly re-construction of Yahweh originated. One modern Samaritan group has stated that the pronunciation of the Divine Name as Yahweh is inaccurate based upon the Samaritan substitution of yaphe/yafe, which was actually their attempt to avoid reading the Divine Name aloud. It should also be noted, that nowhere in the Hebrew Biblical texts is YHWH actually pointed to be read as Yahweh.  

There are some groups that are so fervently convinced that the true name is Yahweh, that they have chosen to call their messiah Yahwehshua, or other variations, using the truncated form of Yah as a prefix.(Yahshua, Yahushua, Yahuwshua,Yahuashua, Yahvahshua, Yahoshua, etc). Their reasoning for this is rooted in the Scripture where Jesus is quoted, in John 5:43, as saying,  “I have come in the name of My Father”. Due to this statement, they believe that He must then have part of the Fathers Name included in His Name. It should be noted that the many variations are not found in the Biblical Hebrew texts. What is found there, are the names Yehoshua (H3091) and the shortened form Yeshua (H3442-H3443). Because of this, many groups have alleged that the Masorites intentionally altered the vowel pointings, therefore, one must reference the unpointed proto Masoretic texts, or the paleo-Hebrew (derived from Phoenician script) for the correct pronunciation. It also should be noted that their chosen pronunciations can not be proven from those earlier unpointed Hebrew texts.

As a side note, I have noticed during my searching of the names in the Biblical Hebrew texts, that the proper names with the theophoric element of Yah or Yahu incorporated, use it as a suffix or ending, and not as a prefix. The common theophoric prefixes that are found in the Hebrew texts are Yeho, and the truncated form Yo. There are many Biblical Hebrew names that demonstrate these two prefixes. For example, from Strong's Concordance: Yehownathan (H3083), Yonathan (H3129), Yehowceph (H3084), Yoseph (H3130), Yehowshua (H3091)..........."

http://www.seekgod.ca/htname.htm

Some parts of this sounds almost like something I may have written.

the possibility that the Samaritans, like the traditional Jews, may have substituted another title when they came upon YHWH written in their Scriptures, so as to not speak the Name.

Many make the claim of substituting some 'title' so as to not speak the holy name. Some claim that this is done so as to not mispronounce the Holy Name, claim that to mispronounce the Holy Name is blasphemy. In reality, what happens is that one speaks the name by the title, thus giving absolute assurance that they do mispronounce the Holy Name as a "title", whatever that "title" may be. Additionally, there is nothing in the Bible that says that one should not pronounce the Holy Name in accordance with common pronunciation of his language. Recognizing that both "Jehovah" and "Yahweh" are common English variations that can be traced by the original Holy Name, we have every reason to conclude that both of these do in fact represent the true name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in English.

[freyd]

I find it very disturbing that God and Messiah are held in such low esteem that the proper pronounciation of their names is not deemed an important enough matter for serious thought. On the one hand, I can see how legalistic Jews could go to the extreme of totally avoiding pronouncing God's name all together. But to go to the other extreme and say it doesn't matter what you call either one of them due to peculiarities of your particular language along with known translation errors, and that it's OK to continue in the error and chalk it up to your tradition, is unconscionable. God is love. He knows the heart.

Matt 15:6-9......Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
 7   You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
 8   These people honor me with their lips,
      but their hearts are far from me.
 9   They worship me in vain;
      their teachings are but rules taught by men

[humbleservant]

I absolutely agree with you Freyd.

Why water down the truth? I believe that in the Hebrew, the tetragamaton, when translated into English is spelled....YHWH, & that there is neither a J or V in the Hebrew tongue. If we just use the consonants, YHWH & sound them out phonetically you would say them as "YaHWeH, or YahWeh.

Even the WTS admit this in their large study bible, at the first subject in the Appendix on page 1561, entitled, 1A "The Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures....Heb, YHWH."

And yet they still stick to the incorrect name...Jehovah. For anyone who has a copy of this bible, I would encourage them to read the first four paragraphs in particular.

Ion

[freyd]

"People usually prefer to believe simplistic urban legends and traditional opinions inherited by sometimes mistaken or ignorant ancestors than look into matters for themselves with reasonable and objective analysis."

http://sagavyah.tripod.com/id76.html

[RRD]

I find it very disturbing that God and Messiah are held in such low esteem that the proper pronounciation of their names is not deemed an important enough matter for serious thought. On the one hand, I can see how legalistic Jews could go to the extreme of totally avoiding pronouncing God's name all together.

In reality, they do not avoid pronouncing God's name altogether, for they pronounce that name using forms of Adon "Lord", forms of EL "God", or with something such as HaShem. In effect, by claiming to avoid pronouncing the holy name, they, in reality, end up changing the Holy Name to one of the titles of God, or to a description of the name, and thus end up pronouncing the name in that manner.

See:
http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,501.msg1075.html#msg1075
http://mostholyname.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/vaticanp/
http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,370.msg4705.html#msg4705

But to go to the other extreme and say it doesn't matter what you call either one of them due to peculiarities of your particular language along with known translation errors, and that it's OK to continue in the error and chalk it up to your tradition, is unconscionable. God is love. He knows the heart.

I am not sure that I can totally agree with this; it would seem to claim something beyond what the Bible states, something that God never proclaimed, that one has to somehow find out, learn and speak His holy name in Hebrew, as it was originally spoken in Hebrew, something for which we only have speculations.

It would reduce God down to being petty about His name, demanding a certain pronunciation as it was in a certain language, which today we do not in reality no for sure how it was originally pronounced. Certainly, if Yahweh was demanding a certain pronunciation of his Holy Name, he would have saw to it that the pronunciation of His Holy Name as He wanted it to be pronounced would have been preserved and generally known. The very fact that we do not know for sure how it was pronounced, to me, indicates that Yahweh.

Is it error that we have two common pronunciations of the name in English (Yahweh and Jehovah)? Both are based on linguistical derivations of the original Hebrew. We do not know for certain how these two pronunciations and spellings came about; what we have are the speculations of men as to how these pronunciations came about. "Jehovah" could be more in line with the original pronunciation than "Yahweh," and there are those who present convincing arguments that this is so.

Likewise, how would the Greeks express the Holy Name in Greek, since the Greeks did not even have the same phonemes. Even knowledge the true phonemes of Koine Greek are not certain today; the phoneme structure commonly used today for pronunication of the Koine Greek is based on the work of Erasmus, which some scholars challenge.
http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/koinonia/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=86

However, many scholars and authors often present their theories and speculations as fact, as though they know that what they are speculating upon is the actual truth. I know that it is easy to this, for I have done the same thing, often without consciously realizing it. Honesty, however, demands that we should be careful in this regard.

I have not found any evidence presented by anyone that the pronunciation given the Masoretes for the Holy Name is, in fact, not the way that it was pronounced by Abraham. All I have seen is the speculation that they changed added the vowel points, which according to the speculation, they did so as a reminder to reader to not pronounce the Holy Name. There are those who have challenged that speculation, which speculation is often presented as though it were a fact. Until I can find some solid evidence that the Masoretes added vowel points of Elohim or Adonai into the tetragrammaton, as has been claimed, I will simply view this as speculation.

Another speculation is that when the Holy Name was brought into Greek, it was formed with vowels similar to our English IAOUE, but because the "O" became as though not pronounced, the name became similar to our English vowels IAUE, and that this was the four vowels that Josephus referred to when he spoke of the Holy Name as being four vowels. (Please note that the Greeks would have originally only had the sounds from the Hebrew, for they did not have the later developed vowel points of the Masoretes.) At any rate, it is from these four Greek vowels, used to represent the Holy Name, that we get the English form: "Yahweh."

I do not believe that either one is in error, or the result of a mistake, but that both are linguistical derivations of the one Holy Name, and thus, both or genuine, true, forms of the Holy Name, just as Ehyeh is also a geniuine form of the Holy Name. Ehyeh (I am - active) and Yahweh (He is - active) are not two different names, they are simply two different verbal conjugations of the same Holy Name. -- Exodus 3:14,15.

Thus, I have no reason to believe that is at all in error to pronounce the holy name in English as "Jehovah" or as as "Yahweh." It most definitely, however, is in error to pronounce the Holy Name as "the Lord", "God," "Power," "Hashem," "The Name," etc.

See my earlier posts:
http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,501.msg1075.html#msg1075
http://mostholyname.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/vaticanp/
http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,370.msg646.html#msg646
http://reslight.net/forum/index.php/topic,169.msg275.html#msg275

[RRD]

I absolutely agree with you Freyd.

Why water down the truth? I believe that in the Hebrew, the tetragamaton, when translated into English is spelled....YHWH, & that there is neither a J or V in the Hebrew tongue. If we just use the consonants, YHWH & sound them out phonetically you would say them as "YaHWeH, or YahWeh.

The Hebrew letters of the tetragrammaton are usually represented as either Yod-He-Waw-He or Jod-He-Vav-He.

Hebrew scholar Gerard Gertoux claims, based on his assumptions, that to sound out the four consonants will give the pronunciation Yehowah. Actually, without knowing with certainty the vowels needed, however, you cannot at all sound them out as either Yahweh, Yehowah, or anything else. All we have are the speculations of men looking back at a dead language. And without knowing for certain the actual phonemes representing the consonants that make up the Holy Name, we cannot state that we are definitely able to sound out the consonants themselves. We really do not know for a certainty the original phonemes of the consonants or the supplied vowels. We do not know for sure whether the Hebrew letter that is often corresponded with "Y" or "J" is pronounced by either of the phonemes we give those letters in English, or something different. Likewise with the Hebrew letter that is often corresponded with the English "W" or "V". The same goes for absolutely every word in the Biblical Hebrew.

True, the Hebrew does not a J or V, nor does it have a Y or an H or W, or any of the letters of the English alphabet. It is often confusing to attach phonemes of an alphabet between to living languages, such as English and Spanish, and is even more difficult when the language has been a dead language for centuries. Look at the difference of pronunciation of the name "Jesus" in English and Spanish, even though the same character types are used to represent the same name in both languages. In other words, when we look at the word in English, it is "Jesus"; when we look at it in Spanish, it is "Jesus"; but the pronunciation of the word is totally different. We do not know with absolute certainty the phonemes attached to the Hebrew letters that represent the Holy Name, or even if the phonemes remained constant all through the period of the Old Testament into the days of Jesus.

And yet they still stick to the incorrect name...Jehovah. For anyone who has a copy of this bible, I would encourage them to read the first four paragraphs in particular.

Ion

I would not judge "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" to be "incorrect". Both represent the holy name in English. Similarly, in English, the name of the Son of God is often represented as "Jesus" (indirectly derived from the Greek), but the same name, derived from the Hebrew, is often represented as "Joshua". Neither word is "incorrect," nor are two different names being represented, but rather, we have two variations of the one name.

[freyd]

In reality, they do not avoid pronouncing God's name altogether, for they pronounce that name using forms of Adon "Lord", forms of EL "God", or with something such as HaShem. In effect, by claiming to avoid pronouncing the holy name, they, in reality, end up changing the Holy Name to one of the titles of God, or to a description of the name, and thus end up pronouncing the name in that manner.

In Hebrew, those four letters are Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [YHVH], but we Jews never pronounce that word, because its exact pronunciation has been lost to us. Rather than take a chance on breaking the commandments in the Torah not to take His Name in vain (Shm'ot [Ex] 20:7), or to profane His Holy Name, ViYikra [Lev] 22:32, we instead have developed a custom of saying either "Adonai," or "HaShem," when we read Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh on a written page.