JW Insider

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus uses hyperbole all the time.

True. And in spite of the seriousness of the overall message, several of Jesus illustrations reach a level we might even call "comedy."

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Kurt is NYT's

Name was familiar, but his specific role was a blur. NYT has been as untrustworthy as others. I notice, now, that when I clicked on the Twitter account, that the above had been the #1 point of at least 8 separate points made.

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

War deaths are  ALWAYS somewhere around 70% deaths for non-combatants..

I've heard numbers like this, too. I recall that when Obama's collateral damage numbers seemed too high, the administration chose to at least call all males of potential military age "combatants." Whether they were doctors, nurses, teachers, students, or whatever clearly didn't matter. Of course, he was neither the first or last to try to cover for a very successful imperialist agenda.

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

To be overly upset about what is happening "over there"

I personally should be more upset, based on Bible admonition to love one's neighbor as oneself, but I am sadly still "underly" upset. It's difficult to empathize as we should. As Witnesses, we can fall back a bit on John 3:16, but it's difficult for us to fathom that kind of love, even for "enemies" and those not related to us in the faith.

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

in the fog of war, such stuff has always happened.   It is the nature of the beast.

Also the fact that when undenied State Department videos and communications get released through FOIA or leaks, etc., we find that it was not through the "fog" of war, but through highly focused satellite lenses. What we hear about as accidental collateral damage is too often the primary focus. As if the existence of combatants are the excuse, and sometimes, therefore, the actual collateral damage when real targets, at times, really are the women, children, the sick, elderly, life-sustaining infrastructure, food supplies, clean water supplies, etc.

Imperialists have long known that war must often focus on the latter to bring real terror and chaos to the enemy.

Don't know Kurt Eichenwald, but his statement is very well put. It is absolutely correct based on all the evidence we have about US support of the Saudis against Yemen.  And it now fits several recent admissions by the US.

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Your statement without explanation AND PROOF !,  is completely useless.

I suspect that this Kurt guy has already been providing evidence and posting evidence of this claim for a couple years. At least I know that several others have been providing evidence of this particular involvement for that long. US Senators have put forth measures to halt US support of Yemen bombing raids. The US has admitted to picking the targets for Saudi Arabia, not speaking out against the atrocities, selling them the equipment, and managing the refueling process for the bombing raids with our own ships in the region. Obama favored bombing people here with drones that ended up hitting wedding parties, school buses, hospitals, women and children. All this from Obama's leadership through and including Trump's leadership has continued to turn Yemen into one of the worst humanitarian crises in our time. Cholera, famine, etc. The United States finds its own reasons to continue supporting and promoting war crimes, and this often means that the United States must align itself with the worst regimes it can find. If ever a "need" for regime change arises, and the US needs to invade another country, we will always have the excuse we need. Of course, I am not picking on the US. Every imperial power does such things.

When something is close to common knowledge outside the US, but is kept from US citizens through the corporate media filter (including Vox, Fox, Vice, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc.) it's usually still easy to get bits of the truth through accidental admission or state department correspondence.

In this case just go to Google (which also now filters against truth about US involvement in atrocities in the name of protecting us from "fake news") and type in "US support of Saudi Arabia against Yemen."

You will get many sites that report on what is already public about this war. (Some of the things I said above.) But the most important clue is how General Mattis, for example, responds to the allegations, by not denying them and admitting there is truth to them:

• Mattis said the U.S. assistance, which includes limited intelligence support and refueling of coalition jets, was ultimately aimed at bringing the war toward a negotiated, U.N.-brokered resolution.  (Reuters)
• “We need to get this to a negotiated settlement, and we believe our policy right now is correct for doing this,” Mattis told reporters, as he flew back to Washington from the Middle East. (Reuters)

You can't trust many headlines on their own even when they all say the same thing from 100 different sources. But if you keep in mind the portions that the US has already admitted, then several of these results from the first page of Google can be more revealing:

2 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

I was being very brief, but yes, in the EU, mainly the UK, hate crimes have been on an all time high and it is mostly directed by people of a specific race and or religious belief

Thanks. I understand much better what you were saying now. I agree with more of it this time around. ?

Yeaaahh!

I know persons who have been pushing for the "PVG" program going on 40 years now. It's really great to see it happen! I hope it expands further. Could also legitimize the work of the HLC in some hospitals where they are currently under suspicion too.

1 hour ago, Space Merchant said:

It may as well be the case for it is stated by former exjws known as anti-jws, having both jws and exjws (pretty much atheists) that a stabbing of a jw in the UK somewhere was a hate crime by means of influence, and this was even stated by the UK gov't, of all people, Theresa May, who is aware of religious hate crime due to influence, granted the hate spreading of muslims in the UK, it is done to jws too. 

I wish I knew exactly what you are saying. I haven't kept up with any hate crime issues in the UK. I think I follow a lot of what you have said, but I can't tell if I am reading you as intended, and I can't say that I totally agree with some apparent assumptions of yours.

I think you are saying that it may very well be the case that the perpetrator will turn out to be a disfellowshipped person. I meant the kind of disfellowshipped person who doesn't feel that he can come back to the fold, therefore I also called him an ex-JW. The idea that he has psychological issues seems obvious to me, based on the type of crime, although I really don't know much of anything about psychiatry.

But then you responded that I might be right because "it is stated by former exjws known as anti-jws, having both jws and exjws (pretty much atheists) that a stabbing of a jw in the UK somewhere was a hate crime by means of influence . . ." I think you are saying (in the next part of the sentence) that the UK has acknowledged that there are hate crimes against Muslims that are influenced from anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate speech. Perhaps you are saying that exjws who are anti-JWs are also influenced by anti-JW hate speech. This is always possible, although I would guess that the combination of factors influencing a person to do this crime will not be clearly traceable to influence by others. My guess is that he is mentally unstable and that whatever action was taken against him personally is perceived as a humiliation or rejection that he perceives he cannot or will not be able to overcome. Rather than merely producing anger, he is lashing out wildly and perceives himself to be punishing the system that is humiliating him, rejecting him, or treating him unjustly.

What you speak about is another possibility, that of a person (likely unstable) being influenced by others to lash out based on a frenzy whipped up by others. And another possibility is that the person really was treated unjustly and knows no other world, or feels trapped that he has no other means of survival but to to lash back at the "power" over him.

What I don't believe is a generalization that exjws are pretty much atheists. Perhaps the most vocal online are, and even there I wouldn't know. I suspect that out of one million exJWs in the world, that 990,000 just drifted into a different type of belief in God that didn't require certain activities that they no longer believe are a requirement from God. Of the other remaining 10,000, many of those are quite angry at policies that left them without access to their loved ones, or made them angry enough to look for reasons to dismiss religion altogether. This same group would be expected to produce the online opposers.

3 hours ago, indagator said:

Probably best to stick with the updated edition.

I get it, and thanks for the advice. If I were to buy every book I wanted to read, I would have spent tens of thousands, quite literally, and in the most literal sense of the word literal. ?

On 8/6/2018 at 12:18 PM, indagator said:

Happy reading.

It's exciting to see so much detail that turns out to be important. I had skimmed some of this before, but missed its relevance, because I had purposely dismissed it as unimportant. To me this info on Ιαω was like those books on the DSS (Qumram texts) that pushed so hard to make them relevant to early Christianity, John the Baptist, etc. I took the lot with a grain of salt. (Yes, pun intended, sorry!) But I realize that there really is a lot to learn even from those books if we can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Also, I was on a trek last year to get some well-respected references on early Christian physical artifacts and had a museum contact give me some good leads. Turns out Shaw's book was among the recommendations, although I was looking into several other points too. While just last week getting a copy of Shaw's book I ended up picking up some other books that I had delayed looking at due to price. But some of these are available only at libraries, and I am trying to work through a few things at once here, as I only visit the library once a week for two hours max.

So I hope you will stick around and be patient with me. I'm only about 25% through Shaw, but I'll definitely keep at it. I'm guessing you've also taken an interest in some of the other issues I'm looking into. So I hope you'll stick around for some other topics too.

I have just read pages 105 - 130 of this paper linked below and found its organized approach valuable. The main point in earlier pages and in the conclusion deal with the skepticism over the traditional/Biblical etymology, but the study leads to some good evidence about various possibilities of pronunciation and spelling. I know that Shaw already covers some of this, too. But I like the organized tables and charts. I found it by reading some more of Didier Fontaine's blog. I had seen areopage links in many places before but hadn't realized it was all him.

https://www.academia.edu/23163338/Making_Sense_of_the_Divine_Name_in_Exodus_From_Etymology_to_Literary_Onomastics

2 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

It would also seem that the New Guy, is taking a liking of you.

I think I'd recognize that "New Guy" anywhere. From what I can see, it's one guy in 30 persons, and 30 persons in one guy. He takes the idea of "trinity" to a whole new order of magnitude.

The following review of the NWT is in French regarding the French edition (2018) of the "2013 Revised NWT" but the review is good and very accurate (imo). It's from an excellent scholar -- the same one who @indagator highlighted for his excellent review of Frank Shaw's book. Currently it's the most recent content on his amazing blog. So you can find it here: http://areopage.net/blog/ or here: http://areopage.net/blog/2018/07/25/tmn-revisee-2018/

38 minutes ago, Nicole said:

“The suspicious device was made to look like a real bomb but in the end, it was found to be fake.”

If there are surveillance videos, I think they will catch him, and most US KH I know have such systems now. Probably will turn out to be a DF'd ex-JW with some pscyhological issues. Making fake suspicious-looking devices is usually helpful to investigators, although investigation might have to be done privately if police put their "forensic" budget only into homicide investigations.

They are not taking airline miles unless you have a significant amount. I just got 4 airport vouchers for $25 each for a delayed international flight. They are transferable but can only be used at CDG airport. I thought about donating them because we had already eaten. According to the website we can donate them.

https://apps.jw.org/E_DONRWRDSPROGRAM?selCntctCountryID=232

• It is not feasible to accept mileage transfers at this time. However, if you have a significant amount of mileage that you wish to donate, you are welcome to contact our JW Donations — Rewards Program Help Desk at: (718) 560-8000.
• Airlines sometimes give credits or vouchers for cancelled or unused flights, delayed baggage, etc. If these are transferable, then they can be donated. Please check with the airline to confirm if a credit is transferable before sending it in as a donation.

And yes, some of these old Brooklyn numbers (718) still work even where the office moved upstate.

8 hours ago, indagator said:

If you want something substantial to think about, try this:

It's all Greek onomastica to me.

The discussion about Esther should have been done in a different thread so as not to divert from the Shaw topic. There is a relationship to the questions about the Divine Name, of course. Esther was one of the later books to be added to the canon, and it should be looked at as a potential book that's on the cusp of those that might include/withhold the Divine Name.

I once heard that the Qumram texts might have been a depository for old scrolls that needed either safekeeping or even replacing after being overused or worn out. We have evidence from a nearby time period that there was a question about destroying scrolls by fire, and some Jewish thought at the time was that, even if the scrolls were from "apostates" that the divine name should be cut out first. All the books of the Hebrew Bible were partially represented at Qumram except Esther.

So there! Definitive proof that Esther did not contain the Divine Name. [Just kidding.]

What is true, of course, is that the importance and care taken with respect to the Divine Name would mean that any Jewish scribe or Jewish reader would quickly notice its presence and absence. Those looking to decide about canonicity would notice. Should note, too, that the rabbis and scribes of old (pre-Masorete) played several other word and letter games with the text. Not all of them caught on. There are people today who still waste their time counting the letters of the English Bibles to find the middle verse of the NT or OT, or OT+NT, or the middle letter, or the 666th verse. If you read through old rabbinical commentaries, you see it's NOT just numerologists and cabalistic gematriasts, but well-known and well-respected rabbis doing things like this. I just looked up "cabalistic" in Google and this [below] came up next to the top. But even without gematria, you will still see discussions of the meaning of each letter, and attempts to find significance in alternate spellings of names, etc:

Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia: A Complete Guide to Cabalistic Magick

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1567183247

David Godwin - 1994 - ?Preview - ?More editions

the cabalistic method of explaining the Hebrew Scriptures by means of the cryptographic significance of the words. Thus, the first word of Genesis in Hebrew, meaning "in the beginning," has the numerical value 913, which is the same as that ...

2 hours ago, Gone Away said:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247826.php

Loosen up...please!

I went to the site and read about the kinds of testicular medical problems you can get from tight pants, and it reminded me of a dirty joke. Which you can find here: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/jokes/tight-underwear/1057145/

Or, it's a pretty old joke, so I could just copy it:

The doctor said, "Joe, the good news is I can cure your headaches. The bad news is that it will require castration. You have a very rare condition, which causes your testicles to press on your spine, and the pressure creates one hell of a headache. The only way to relieve the pressure is to remove the testicles."

Joe was shocked and depressed. He wondered if he had anything to live for. He couldn't concentrate long enough to answer, but decided he had no choice but to go under the knife.

When he left the hospital he was without a headache for the first time in 20 years, but he felt like he was missing an important part of himself. As he walked down the street, he realized that he felt like a different person. He could make a new beginning and live a new life. He saw a men's clothing store & thought, "That's what I need - a new suit."

He entered the shop and told the salesman, "I'd like a new suit." The elderly tailor eyed him briefly and said, "Let's see ... size 44 long." Joe laughed, "That's right, how did you know?" "Been in the business 60 years!" Joe tried on the suit. It fit perfectly.

As Joe admired himself in the mirror, the salesman asked, "How about a new shirt?" Joe thought for a moment and then said, "Sure." The salesman eyed Joe and said, "Let's see, 34 sleeve & 16-1/2 neck." Again, Joe was surprised, "That's right, how did you know?" "Been in the business 60 years!"

Joe tried on the shirt, and it fit perfectly. As Joe adjusted the collar in the mirror, the salesman asked, "How about new shoes?" Joe was on a roll and said, "Sure." The salesman eyed Joe's feet and said, "Let's see ... 9-1/2 E." Joe was astonished, "That's right, how did you know?" "Been in the business 60 years!"

Joe tried on the shoes and they fit perfectly. Joe walked comfortably around the shop and the salesman asked, "How about some new underwear?" Joe thought for a second and said, "Sure." The salesman stepped back, eyed Joe's waist and said, "Let's see... size 36."

[wait scroll for it]

Joe laughed. "Ah ha! I got you! I've worn size 34 since I was 18 years old." The salesman shook his head, "You can't wear a size 34. A size 34 underwear would press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one hell of a headache.

5 hours ago, Gone Away said:

The first "there is no reason to “encode” the divine name." Obvious response to this one is "From whose standpoint?"

So you are saying that God wanted to hide his name? For what reason would God want his name hidden?

Of course, in context, the author is saying that for code believers, there is a reason given for God to encode the divine name in Esther. Otherwise the book wouldn't contain any reference at all to YHWH. But for other books that already have YHWH in it the author says there is no reason [ever given, or even considered] to encode the divine name. No one thinks of explaining why 15 OTHER Bible books contain the YHWH acrostic, not just Esther.

For example, Esther has 10 chapters, and you could claim there are four of these are acrostics in 10 chapters, assuming you look in both directions using both initial letters and final letters. Yet, 1 Chronicles apparently has nine of these, more than twice as many. And 1 Chronicles also has a string of 10 chapters, like Esther, with 6 of these in those ten chapters alone. No one makes a big deal about these ones in 1 Chronicles, because there is no reason to.

To me this is like trying to find pictures of demons in Watchtower illustrations. The people who see them are sometimes people who desparately need to see them (apparently). Which also reminds me of a discussion I had with someone who truly believed in the "Bible Code." This is where people were running computer programs on the Bible text to show especially that if you lined up all the letters of the OT in a kind of 2D matrix of different line lengths, you could play a word search game like these ( http://word-search-puzzles.appspot.com/ ). The biggest thing for fundamentalists to find of course were the Hebrew letters for "Yeshua is God, Yehoshua is the Messiah, etc., to prove that Christ Jesus had been prophesied. Some people were also 'going nuts' finding "Rabin Assassination," and dozens of other things.

It was easy to prove mathematically (statistically) by letter frequency and distribution that one should also be able to find a certain number of times where the letters would also align to say "Satan is God" or "Paul is Dead" (backwards of course). Proving all these things meant nothing to the person I was talking to, until her pastor told her it was wrong. Similarly, the article on Esther shows that "SATAN" is also found in Esther's acrostics, not just YHWH.

Of course, I'm not claiming the "acrostics" aren't there, but I'm in the camp that believes they don't mean anything. They are just as coincidental in Esther as they are in 1 Chronicles. If they are not coincidental, I also would not have put it past the Masoretes to play with the word order to get a few extra acrostics in Esther that weren't there in the natural text. After all, the Masoretes were willing to change God's curses to God's blessings. Even a much earlier translator/reviser who worked on replacements for the LXX changed wording to make God's "human-sounding" traits disappear. 

There are a few other problems, the most important to me is that it would make the wisdom of God more accessible to the wise and clever. A class of scribes who were more privileged and literate would have a distinct advantage over the masses of people who came to listen to the Bible being read to them. If a scribe or priest made a claim to the unlettered classes about this wonderful, surprising, happifying find (as FWFwould  refer to a numerical coincidence) they would just have to take their word for it.

And of course, the apparent randomness and mundane nature of the places where these acrostics are found creates another level of cleverness to try to explain them. "Esther asked a couple of bad people to come here." Why would that be a place on which to place God's name?

Here are the places in Esther, as described in the NWT footnotes. I will highlight the words from the text where YHWH is supposedly applicable:

*** Rbi8 Esther 1:20 ***

• "It . . . and all the wives themselves will give.” Hiʼ Wekhol-Han·na·shimʹ Yit·tenuʹ (Heb.) appears to be a reverse acrostic of the Tetragrammaton, יהוה (YHWH). Three ancient Heb. mss are known that give the letters of the divine name here in acrostic in majuscule letters, as follows: היא וכל־הנשים יתנו. This is the first of four such acrostics of the name “Jehovah,” and the Masorah in a rubric, or in red letters, calls attention to this.

*** Rbi8 Esther 5:4 ***

• “Let the king with Haman come today.” This appears to be the second acrostic of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, in Esther. Ya·vohʼʹ Ham·meʹlekh Weha·manʹ Hai·yohmʹ, in Heb. Three ancient Heb. mss are known that give the Heb. letters of the divine name, יהוה (YHWH), in acrostic in majuscule letters, as follows: יבוא המלך והמן היום. The Masorah in a rubric, or in red letters, calls attention to this. See 1:20 ftn.

*** Rbi8 Esther 5:13 ***

• “But all this—none of it suits me.” Heb., wekhol-zeHʹ ʼeh·nenʹnU sho·weHʹ lI. Here U corresponds to W and I corresponds to Y. This appears to be the third acrostic of the Tetragrammaton, יהוה (YHWH), in Esther. Three ancient Heb. mss are known that give the Heb. letters of the divine name, יהוה, here spelled backward, in acrostic in majuscule letters, as follows: וכל־זה איננו שוה לי. The Masorah in a rubric, or in red letters, calls attention to this. See vs 4 and 1:20 ftns.

*** Rbi8 Esther 7:7 ***

• “That bad had been determined against him.” In this acrostic kI-khol·thaHʹ ʼe·laVʹ ha·ra·ʽaHʹ (Heb.), the I corresponds to Y and the V corresponds to W. This appears to be the fourth acrostic of the divine name, יהוה (YHWH), in Esther. It is formed by the final letters of the four words, read from right to left in Heb., as follows: כי־כלתה אליו הרעה.

None of these phrases are especially upbuilding or "godly" in any way.

Not only that, but it gives what seems to be undue importance to the Hebrew language. If it were so important, why does the Bible itself seem to transition over to Aramaic in those books written closer to the time when Aramaic was becoming more ubiquitous. And evidently some additions to older books, too: Genesis, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra.

It's also just playing with Hebrew usage that had changed over time with the utilization of some of these letters as vowels in certain places, as consonants in other places, and prefixes in others. Note that "VAV" can be the U sound, or the O sound, or the V/W sound. When a "VAV" is placed in front of the word "all" in one place, it's attached as a kind of prefix to mean "and." So it's not even the more important word "all" but a Hebrew construct that is written as AND-ALL where the word "all" doesn't even count as a word in these acrostics. Similar things could be said for the "H" when used as a "prefix" it just means "THE" ["Ha"].

So a sentence that says "Let the King with Haman come today" is literally really just "LET-COME THE-KING AND-HAMAN THE-DAY. In the acrostic, the only words that count are LET[come], THE, AND, THE. Yet the most significant words are effectively skipped and worthless. The words KING, HAMAN and DAY are insignificant and not part of the acrostic due to the common way "AND" and "THE" are prefixed to a word. [HA can also mean "THIS" as the 'definite article' so that "this day" is TO-DAY.]  "YOD" is a common verb modifier prefix, too. In large part, it's because the word "THE" and "AND" are so common that there are so many of these acrostics.

A better than usual treatment of the subject. Doesn't sound like a hit piece on Witnesses.

After I retired, I was talked into taking a job in Ohio for a data center. I didn't have to travel but once a month or so, but still had to go to off-site meetings with the other directors, and these could take three or four days. One was in Ohio and one of the other attendees had been Mennonite and still went to some sort of church that seemed to be a cross between Mennonites and some other Evangelical/Fundamentalist. I asked her about the new church and she said that a lot of shunned Mennonites go there. It was started by a shunned Mennonite. I told her that I thought Amish shun but Mennonites were not quite the same. She said that Mennonites shun just as badly but it might take more to get to that point. At any rate, she said that they claim not to shun, but still do. Harshly, sometimes.

32 minutes ago, indagator said:

On the topic of an acrostic divine name in Esther, have you read this?

Yes. I read it soon after GA once asked a question here about that view of Esther and YHWH. I also have the following saved to my drive that I hadn't completed yet, but I have skimmed most of it and read the conclusions. It covers much of the same material as Turner, about the same length, but in slightly more depth, I think. So far, it seemed to answer the question in the same way, not definitively, but as definitive as necessary in a scholarly paper. 

• Accident or Acronymy: The Tetragrammaton in the Masoretic Text of Esther
• John M. Manguno Jr.
• From Bibliotheca Sacra 171 (October - December 2014): 440-451

http://www.academia.edu/10195380/ACCIDENT_OR_ACRONYMY_THE_TETRAGRAMMATON_IN_THE_MASORETIC_TEXT_OF_ESTHER

Unfortunately, there is also Biblical precedent for this. It happens in the United States too, but more and more attention to it has been slowly changing the laws in many U.S. states.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

But the New World Translation better captures the flavor of the Greek word and renders the term ‘theatrical spectacle.’ Is it because its translators are better acquainted with the concept of acting on a stage?

Most probably the others avoid "theatrical" spectacle because it implies acting on a stage. While this could have been the meaning, it is an interpreted one, and not necessary to imply in translating. In the context, it was much more likely that Paul was referring to the procession of those who were taken to theaters to be killed. No acting required!

Contemporary English Version

• It seems to me that God has put us apostles in the worst possible place. We are like prisoners on their way to death. Angels and the people of this world just laugh at us. 

[A pretty bad translation that implies angels are just laughing at people like Paul]

Good News Translation

• For it seems to me that God has given the very last place to us apostles, like people condemned to die in public as a spectacle for the whole world of angels and of human beings. 

[Much better in that it links the condemnation directly with the idea of being a condemned spectacle, a very common sight in Greek/Roman theaters at this time.]

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

• For I suppose that God has appointed us Apostles at last, as for death, that we would be a stage play for the universe, for Angels and for men.

[Same idea as the NWT]

That last reference to Yahoel or Iaoel is not because I think it reflects directly on any NT verse, but it will come up at least as a minor piece of evidence among many other more important pieces of evidence. My first interest in it was not because of this IAO issue, but started when we were discussing the arch-angel "Michael." I have also seen a discussion of it in books about "IAO" however, this is what I found interesting about "Michael," in a Wikipedia quote from the same article on "Apocalypse of Abraham:"

• Yahoel (or Iaoel) in the Apocalypse of Abraham is the mighty angel sent to guide Abraham. Yahoel introduces himself as a being possessed of the power of the Ineffable Name "whose name is like unto that of God Himself". As the angel nearer to God, or perhaps as a manifestation of the power of God himself, Yahoel is said to be also the heavenly choirmaster, the one . . . who has the control over "the threats and attacks of the reptiles" [the dragon, Leviathan is mentioned in the book], with the chief task of protecting and watching over Israel. These functions were traditionally ascribed to Michael and mark the gradual transformation of Michael, originally the guardian angel of Israel. . . .

I left out some of the quote, of course, but this is still intriguing when we remember that Michael means "Who is LIKE God" and this named archangel "IAOel" is spoken of as having the power of the Divine Name and who is also the "angel" nearest to God, the power of God, whose name is LIKE God himself. [Recall, too, that Immanuel means "God with us".] Just as with Michael, Iaoel is the protecting archangel of Israel, who also would be the one who protects Israel from the reptile "dragon/serpent."

Note however that some of the Apocalypse of Abraham has evidently been fused with later gnostic beliefs where the God of Israel is not presented as a good God (he is given a name meaning "evil spirit"), and even "Michael" becomes "intertwined" with the serpent. The Jewish Encyclopedia adds this point http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/361-abraham-apocalypse-of:

• But this very opposition to the Christian dogma shows that at the time the Apocalypse was written Christianity was not far removed from Judaism, at least not in Palestine, where, since he used a Semitic language, the author must have lived. The last decades of the first century appear to be the period in which the Apocalypse was written. This remark, however, applies to the main part of the book, and not to its Christian and Gnostic interpolations. In connection with these must be considered the statement found in the Apocalypse that Azazel, who is described as being endowed with twelve wings (which description coincides exactly with that given in the Haggadah, Pir?e R. El. xiii.), shares with God the power over Israel. This is, no doubt, the Gnostic doctrine of the God of the Jews as Kakodaimon; and in this connection Irenæus may be quoted, who says of the Ophitic Gnostics ("Contra ???????," i. 30, 9), "et projectibilem serpentem duo habere nomina, Michael et Samael, dicunt" (and they called the wretched serpent two names, Michael and Samael). Thus, in the mind of these Gnostics, Samael ( "the entwined serpent") and Michael were fused into one being. Therefore, it is quite probable that certain parts of the heretical Apocalypse of Abraham, which was in circulation among the Gnostics (Epiphanius, ???????? 39, 5), were incorporated in the present text. Subtracting, then, the first part, which does not belong to the Apocalypse, and the Gnostic and Christian interpolations, only about three hundred lines remain, and this number would exactly correspond with the number which, according to the stichometry of Nicephorus, the Apocalypse of Abraham contained.

5 hours ago, Gone Away said:

What interests me more is did/how did Jesus pronounce the name? And what reaction was there at the time?

There is a lot more info related to that topic than I ever imagined possible.

One could argue that he did not pronounce it at all, and this is why there are no reports in the Greek Scriptures of any squabbles surrounding the issue. Just guessing, of course, but I think this is wrong, and that Jesus probably pronounced it just as most all other Galilean Aramaic speakers would have at that time.

The very first words reported about Jesus' public ministry relate to his baptism where John is preaching based on an OT verse containing the Divine Name (and in Matthew Jesus public ministry starts with Jesus preaching the same theme):

• “Repent, for the Kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”+ ³  This, in fact, is the one spoken of through Isaiah the prophet+ in these words: “A voice of one calling out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of Jehovah!* Make his roads straight.’”

When Satan tempts Jesus times, all three responses from Jesus quoted a scripture that contained the Divine Name:

• It is written: ‘Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every word that comes from Jehovah’s* mouth.’”
• “Again it is written: ‘You must not put Jehovah* your God to the test.’”
• For it is written: ‘It is Jehovah* your God you must worship,+ and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.’”+

In Luke, he reports that one of the first things Jesus did in his public ministry was to go to a synagogue and begin reading from the scroll of Isaiah. We often assume this had to be a Hebrew scroll, but it very well could have been a Greek scroll (LXX). Either way, the Divine Name would have been addressed somehow. In Hebrew, it's from a place in Isaiah that conspicuously starts and ends with a reference to the Divine Name.

• (Luke 4:18,19) ¹⁸  “Jehovah’s* spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away free,+ ¹⁹  to preach Jehovah’s* acceptable year.”+

Also, the most quoted and most referenced verse from the Hebrew that was used as a theme for Christian writings was Psalm 110:1-3. This is a verse that cannot even be understood well without knowledge that the very first word is the Divine Name ("YHWH") and is obscured into ambiguity if one only heard "KYRIOS said unto David's KYRIOS."

And the Divine Name is surely related to a sub-theme of the Christian Greek Scriptures, perhaps in ways that we are not anxious to address. For example: what is the Name that Jesus is given, a wonderful Name? In what way is Jesus given a name that is above every name? How is that ONLY in the name of Jesus can someone be saved?

It's possible that some of these issues might even be related to Jesus' personal name, "Yahoshua" or "Yehoshua" meaning YAHO is SALVATION. An interesting bit of evidence reflecting some Jewish thinking at the time might be seen in the book "Apocalypse of Abraham" which could have written as early as 70 C.E. Wikipedia mentions this about the "arch-angel" Yahoel mentioned in the book:

• The angel Yahoel is sent to Abraham, terrified of the experience, to guide him and to teach him how to perform the sacrifice. Yahoel introduces himself as a being "whose name is like unto that of God Himself"

The entry under Yahoel [which, in Hebrew, would mean "YAHO is GOD"] contains another version in a footnote/reference:

• Christopher Rowland, Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones The mystery of God: early Jewish mysticism and the New Testament 2009 Page 53 "It speaks of the angel Yaoel who appears to Abraham and takes him to heaven, an angel who has God's name dwelling in him: I am called Yaoel . . .

4 hours ago, Gone Away said:

Interesting. Seems to be a view amongst some I have met, particularly evangelicals, but also a number of clergymen from a variety of denominations.

I don't think we ever really disagreed on this point. I think you are saying that this view is very widespread: that the reason we don't know the correct pronunciation today is due to a lack of written vowels in Hebrew. This same argument would be partly right for every Hebrew name and every Hebrew word, since Hebrew, as spoken today, is a "resurrected" language.

Excuse the double-negative, but I was not saying that this lack of vowels in Hebrew is not one of the reasons. I was saying that no one could argue that this was specifically why the name would have been unpronounceable. Otherwise, the name Jeremiah would have been unpronounceable, too. The other factors surrounding the Divine Name must have been much more important with respect to why the name ultimately became unpronounced, even though still pronounceable.

I would agree that, as of today, one of the difficulties in retrieving a "correct" pronunciation is that Hebrew was not fully voweled during the years when pronouncing the Divine Name began falling into disuse. And when Hebrew was fully voweled, not only had that disuse become widespread, but the vowels chosen for the Hebrew tetragrammaton were evidently purposely misleading, to keep that name unpronounced, or perhaps to discourage any pronunciation even being attempted. If those vowel pointings used by the Masoretes were meant to remind persons to use Elohim or Adonai in place of the Divine Name, this would very likely have been done because the name was still pronounceable in a way that these scribes (and those who would make use of their work) understood to be "correct."

A transliteration into other languages (which are more fully voweled, or with more consistent voweling rules) is helpful in retrieving a "correct" pronunciation, and that is one of the reasons that the early LXX variants are so important.

I don't think I've said anything here that's new or even anything that you likely disagree with. I was only taking issue with a specific way in which the idea about lack of written vowels could result in a misunderstanding. If I can reiterate, I don't think anyone would argue that a lack of written vowels had anything to do with why the Divine Name became unpronounceable, but, yes, it has become a major modern factor in trying to retrieve a likely (or "correct") ancient pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.

Well, I now have Shaw's book, the whole thing. It is densely packed. It will take a while to wade through completely, and I'd like to complete it by next week, but I'm not sure I'll even start before then. I would like to complete Meyer's work first, now that I read about a third of it. And I'm constantly find intriguing little side-routes along the way, or things that just come to mind:

1. The most recent sidetrack was a dissertation I just read about the "acrostic" divine name, YHWH, in the book of Esther. I have always wondered what the most complete surveys of the evidence would say about it, and I think my suspicions are now confirmed after reading a good scholarly treatment of that subject last night.
2. The night before it was trying to figure out how early that Christian writers were treating the name Jesus as a divine name. Some of Chester Beatty's mss that could potentially be dated to the second century CE (although this is likely too early) even have the name JOSHUA in the OT turned into a "divine name" based, it is assumed, on the proximity to the name JESUS.
3. The night before that it was reading some things Philo said that I had never read before.
4. The night before that it was reading some things I probably read before in Josephus, but didn't remember.
5. etc.

As an amateur, so many of these points are new to me, and I therefore get sidetracked more than most, I'd guess. I'm not a steady reader who can stay on topic. But one of the advantages of being an amateur is the special joy you get when you are about to read someone's treatise on a topic that you know very little about, and you guess the outcome in advance. I'm constantly second-guessing authors with the idea that "I bet I'm going to find . . .  this or that." When you guess them right, it's probably the same kind of joy my grandmother would get when she completed a difficult crossword or jig-saw puzzle.

On 7/21/2018 at 3:05 PM, indagator said:

He mentioned the BA article by Howard in his post above. That was a watered down version of his 1977 classic article in the JBL, the article that began the controversy in academic circles.

Thanks. For those with JSTOR access through a university or library, it's also here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3265328