AboutBrenton Hepburn Expertise I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I can answer questions on the reliability of the NWT, the so called mind control problems, so called prophecies, and general practices and history of Jehovah’s Witnesses.....
>>>>WARNING<<<<<< ....Please be aware that there are at least ... 3 .... people here who ARE NOT practicing JWs and, (at other times there have been as many as 5.) These ones will, at times, appear to have an agenda against JWs., and will often give answers that are not correct in regard to JW teachings and practices. If you are after a answer from one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, please read some of the answers that the various experts have published before choosing someone. If you want to ask them a question that is fine, but if you want a balancing view after asking one of the NON JWs, ask a JW the same question
Experience I have been a publisher since 1964. When I first went on the internet I found a lot of negative information dealing with Jehovah’s Witnesses covering prophecy, mind control and what many said was a very bad translation of the Bible known as the NWT. It shook my faith. After may hours researching these topics I could see why some felt that way, but, I was also able to explain why there were these misleading views. I can now set matters straight for anyone that has negative information about Jehovah’s Witness to show them that such information is at best misleading and at worst dangerous lies.
Education/Credentials I have been a student of the Bible for many years, am trying to teach myself Biblical Greek.
Was a public tax accountant for many yrars untill SEP 2009 when I gave it up.
Question The Masoretes actually combined the word YHVH with the vowel points in the word Adonai or Adonay. They did this to keep the sacred name from being pronounced. So you would have YaHoWaH after the vowel points were added. Since there was no such word in the Hebre language, they knew that it would force the reading to stop and think what he was reading and avoid saying the sacred name. Later some Christian translators combined these vowel points thinking it was some sort of Hebrew translations--they came up with YaHoWah. During the Reformation this became Jahovah under the Germans and then Jehovah under the English. When actually in was a combination of the word YHVH and the vowel points in Adonay--not a real word at all and definitely not the God of creation's name. Vowel points were pronounced in YHVH and not written. The Jews knew to pronounce them based on the construction of the sentence and the context. So, tell the people the truth. The creator's name is not and never was Jehovah. You must stick to it because you have made such an issue of calling on that pagan name. Yahweh or Yahveh would be a more accurate pronunciation with the v being pronounce between an English V and W.
Answer Hello Lorna,
Sorry for the delay.
For some reason I am not reciving notification of questions. I only find out I have a question when I log into the web site. I normally do not log on unless I have recived notification of a question
Your are absolutely correct. The name of the most high in Hebrew is not Jehovah.. The pronunciation of the Name was familiar to the Israelites and when they saw it in writing they supplied the vowels without thinking (just as, for an English reader, the abbreviation "Ltd." represents "Limited" and "bldg." represents "building").
Two things happened to change this situation. First, a superstitious idea arose among the Jews that it was wrong to say the divine name out loud. They thought that the divine name should not be vocalized and thus a tradition of not using came about. This was due to the command of not taking Gods name in vain. One example of this is in Leviticus 19:12 ("And you shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD" [RSV]) As a result the Jews (as a whole) stopped using the name as it was originally spoken. However. when they came to it in their Bible reading they uttered the Hebrew word Adho·nai("Sovereign Lord").
Further, as time went by, the ancient Hebrew language itself ceased to be spoken in everyday conversation, and in this way the original Hebrew pronunciation of God's name was eventually forgotten.
Different scholars have different ideas about how the name YHWH was originally pronounced.
In The Mysterious Name of Y.H.W.H., page 74, Dr. M. Reisel said that the "vocalisation of the Tetragrammaton must originally have been YeHuà H or YaHuà H."
In 1749 the German Bible scholar Teller told of some different pronunciations of God's name he had read: "Diodorus from Sicily, Macrobius, Clemens Alexandrinus, Saint Jerome and Origenes wrote Jao; the Samaritans, Epiphanius, Theodoretus, Jahe, or Jave; Ludwig Cappel reads Javoh; Drusius, Jahve; Hottinger, Jehva; Mercerus, Jehovah; Castellio, Jovah; and le Clerc, Jawoh, or Javoh."
Now we believe that that command was not to forbid using the name. We say that because in the Hebrew texts, the name of God (YHWH) appears over 7000 times. That tells us that God wants us to know his name. Just for example in the Book of Ezekiel the expression "Å“and they shall know that I the LORD" (The word LORD here in the original text YHWH) appears about 70 times. John records the words of Jesus at John 17:26 "I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known" (RSV). So the first centry Christians under the leadership of Jesus would have also made known the name of the God of the Israelites.
Why use a name for God that we do not really know how to pronounce?
We use names to identify each other. The God of the Bible wanted to be identified. Different languages have different spellings and pronunciations of many names. We have adopted the English version of the name that has been around the longest and best known for the name of the God of the Bible. The principle of using the English letter "J" instead of the Hebrew "Y" has been around since the Bible was first produced in English. That is why today we accept the English form of names such as Joshua, Jacob, Jehu, Jonah, Jeremiah, Jerusalem etc. All of these start with "Y" and have not vowls in the original writen Hebrew
The Jing James Bible uses the English version Jehovah at Psalms 83:18 "That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.". Here is a list of Jehovah in other languages.
Thus it is evident that the original pronunciation of God's name is no longer known. Nor is it really important. If it were, then God himself would have made sure that it was preserved for us to use. The important thing is to use God's name according to its conventional pronunciation in our own language.
