Early Christians, the New Testament and the Divine Name.

[JW Insider]

I have recently, just today, communicated again with Gerard Gertoux requesting permission to quote extensive long passages from his book on this topic as a basis for a more in-depth forum discussion. The Amazon link to his book is here:

The Name of God Y.eH.oW.aH Which is pronounced as it is Written I_Eh_oU_Ah

A subset of that same material is also found here:

http://areopage.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Gertoux_UseNameEarlyChristians.pdf

Gerard Gertoux has responded that it would be better to use  https://www.academia.edu/14029315 as it is a free version that all of us can download, and it has no copyright.

Since this topic comes up now and then, under various topic headings, I hope that some might find it useful to understand the basics of his argument. He assumes a lot of background and expertise that many do not have, but the material is accessible enough so that we can all learn a lot about the topic and even about the related background material at the same time.

Out of respect for the author's wishes, let's not make extensive quotes from the book or the "areopage.net" link above except where fair use might allow. And even the "academia.edu" content should only be quoted in reasonable portions to the extent that it is needed for discussion. I have also mentioned to the author that I will do my best to keep the topic from devolving into a discussion of the Trinity. I will try to keep the discussion on topic, which also means that it should not become a free-for-all with critiques of the New World Translation or the persons who may have worked on it.

The topic will not revolve only around Gerard Gertoux's writing, but it's a good place to start. Feel free to bring in evidence from other authors and researchers if it is related to the questions. As a reminder the evidence we discuss should focus especially on the following questions:

• Did Jesus and the apostles and disciples of the first century use the Divine Name?
• Did they read it aloud when they came to it in the OT Scriptures?
• Did they include it (and therefore expect it to be used aloud) in the writings of the NT?

[And, of course, feel free to use the terms OT and NT as abbreviations for "Hebrew Scriptures" and "Christian Greek Scriptures" respectively.]

[JW Insider]

Just to get the discussion going, I'll quote only one sentences from the areopage.net site and the entire initial "abstract" paragraph from the academia.edu site. The first quote is a response a question about whether Jesus pronounced the divine name:

• In the first place, as he strongly denounced human traditions which annulled divine dictates (Mt 15:3), it seems unlikely that he complied with this unbiblical custom of not pronouncing the Name, which appeared only around 130-160 CE, according to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 101a 10:1), with Rabbi Abba Saul who prohibited the pronunciation of the tetragram (YHWH in Hebrew יהוה ) according to its letters2, warning that those transgressing this command would forfeit their portion in the world to come.

 

• Abstract. The understanding of God's name YHWH is so controversial that it is eventually the controversy of controversies, or the ultimate controversy. Indeed, why most of competent Hebrew scholars propagate patently false explanations about God's name? Why do the Jews refuse to read God's name as it is written and read Adonay "my Lord" (a plural of majesty) instead of it? Why God's name is usually punctuated e, a (shewa, qamats) by the Masoretes what makes its reading impossible, because the 4 consonants of the name YHWH must have at least 3 vowels (long or short) to be read, like the words [Adonay and Elohim] "God" (a plural of majesty), which have 4 consonants and 3 vowels? At last,why the obvious reading "Yehowah", according to theophoric names, which all begin by Yeho-, without exception, is so despised, and why the simple biblical meaning, "He will be" from Exodus 3:14, is rejected.

[Anna]

Thanks @JW Insider, it should be a good discussion. I have already got a few of Gerard's papers downloaded from the academia website when we were discussing the controversial "desolation of Jerusalem 587/607" subject. But that's another topic.....

I will take a look at this paper

[JW Insider]

7 hours ago, Anna said:

I have already got a few of Gerard's papers downloaded from the academia website when we were discussing the controversial

I have downloaded several that I never read. His papers on specific Bible-related chronology issues are interesting but I haven't completed them, and he keeps more papers coming.

A quick word on my own personal bias here. As I told the author: "I am very much aligned with your work on the topic. Naturally there are a few specific things I question, even if I end up with an overall conclusion that is generally like yours."

I think that when I bring up questions, just as I have on several issues coming from the WTS or GB, there are always a few persons who believe this is highly disrespectful, and they make it clear that to question the GB is tantamount to questioning God. Of course, I not only consider it our Christian obligation to question, it also serves the purpose of refining. Even the questioning by various sects helped refine Christian truth according to Paul.

• (1 Corinthians 11:19) For there will certainly also be sects among you, so that those of you who are approved may also become evident.

This fits the idea in Greek that testing is the same as refining.

• (1 Peter 1:7) 7 in order that the tested quality of your faith, of much greater value than gold that perishes despite its being tested by fire,. . .

The NWT in the footnote here says that "tested" could be translated as "refined."

So I propose we should put any argument through the fire. It's not a sign of disrespect for the author. (Abraham didn't think it was such a bad thing to question God!) It can mean just the opposite, that we are treating someone's words the way we would treat nuggets of newly found gold . . . to refine them and make sure that what holds up is pure. Mostly, however, I think we should question and test and put all ideas through the fire so that we can have a better understanding ourselves, and thus be better prepared to defend what we believe. (1 Peter 3:15)

[alvi languore insanabili]

This shouldn’t be surprising since Gerald seems to expand his research that doesn’t necessarily agree with the Watchtower, nor does it conform to critical peer review.

The Name of God will have differences by language, but by in large, the general understanding stands as Yahweh under the old and new refined language and Jehovah with all the language adjustment made to appeal to modern language.

http://realnewsrightnow.com/2017/02/pope-francis-orders-vatican-archives-reveal-gods-name-ending-centuries-secrecy/

By this standard, Gerard Gertoux brings nothing new to the table, and he is certainly not a scholar to be admired for his work. The Watchtower is clear in its understanding, and it has for a long time. What interested me? How mindful it is not to have this scholars information violated when it is done with the Watchtower literature at every turn.

[JW Insider]

9 hours ago, JW Insider said:

In the first place, as he strongly denounced human traditions which annulled divine dictates (Mt 15:3), it seems unlikely that he complied with this unbiblical custom of not pronouncing the Name

I am quoting here from that long sentence that begins the essay found here: http://areopage.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Gertoux_UseNameEarlyChristians.pdf (which contains copyrighted material).

Gertoux packs a lot into this sentence, and this is just the first part of it. To begin, Matthew 15:3 says:

• In reply he said to them: “Why do you overstep the commandment of God because of your tradition?

And then Jesus goes on to say in verses 9-11:

• 9 It is in vain that they keep worshipping me, for they teach commands of men as doctrines.’” 10 With that he called the crowd near and said to them: “Listen and get the sense of it: 11 It is not what enters into a man’s mouth that defiles him, but it is what comes out of his mouth that defiles him.”

The natural instinct is to think that since Jesus had just given an example of what the hypocrites do to dishonor their mother and father, that this applies even more so when we think of ways in which we can honor our heavenly Father. And one of those ways would be to call him by his personal name in the way that the Hebrew nation had done for  1,000 years, since Moses around 1500 BCE, or even since Abraham, more than 500 years before that!

But, for the sake of argument, we might also want to put ourselves in the shoes of the Jewish nation and try to figure out why this idea of not pronouncing God's name ever caught on so widely in the first place. There is very good information in the Insight book on this topic under "Jehovah" but it admits that we don't know the reason for sure.

*** it-2 p. 5 Jehovah ***

• When did the superstition take hold? Just as the reason or reasons originally advanced for discontinuing the use of the divine name are uncertain, so, too, there is much uncertainty as to when this superstitious view really took hold.

[JW Insider]

12 hours ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

This shouldn’t be surprising since Gerald seems to expand his research that doesn’t necessarily agree with the Watchtower, nor does it conform to critical peer review.

I take it from your "HaHa" and "Confused" icon responses @alvi languore insanabili to some of the posts in this thread that you don't think Gertoux's research is much worth considering. That's fine, of course. But I was hoping that we could avoid making claims about anyone's research in this particular thread without some form of reference or consensus based on some evidence. I don't know anything in particular about whether it conforms to peer review, but Gerard Gertoux (by email) had mentioned that a reading committee for University Press of America had already evaluated the full version of his book:  https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761822042

As you know the Watchtower has often made claims that do not conform to critical peer review, and most often, we just give them the benefit of the doubt (myself included). The exceptions for me are usually only in the areas where the Watchtower itself has no longer agreed with the Watchtower, and has therefore made many updates and changes for those many times when things don't make as much sense for them any more.

12 hours ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

The Name of God will have differences by language, but by in large, the general understanding stands as Yahweh under the old and new refined language and Jehovah with all the language adjustment made to appeal to modern language.

True. From the beginning the NWT committee has consistently held that "Yahweh" is preferable from a scholarly standpoint, but "Jehovah" is preferable for a modern-language, recognizable equivalent. But there are a couple different lines of evidence that something like J Eh-'Ow-'Uah is another possibility. I think that Gertoux picks up on this possibility as a way to show that the WTS may have made an even BETTER choice than they may have understood at first. And I also think that there are several pieces of evidence that he picks up on that we can learn from.

For what it's worth. I'm very happy with the choice of Jehovah, and of course it doesn't bother me at all to see Yahweh or a near equivalent like Jahve (NJT) in a translation. None of them seem as natural in an English translation, but that's probably just what I'm used to.

Also, not that it matters what I think, but I think the WTS and the NWT committee has done the right thing in adding a YHWH equivalent (Jehovah, for example) back into the Greek text where it was a quote from the OT, because this is obviously a place where even "Lord" had been used as an equivalent for "YHWH." I don't agree with some of the places where it was added, if those places were not quotations, although a footnote could explain some reasonable exceptions.

[alvi languore insanabili]

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

As you know the Watchtower has often made claims that do not conform to critical peer review, and most often, we just give them the benefit of the doubt (myself included). The exceptions for me are usually only in the areas where the Watchtower itself has no longer agreed with the Watchtower, and has therefore made many updates and changes for those many times when things don't make as much sense for them any more.

That is precisely the point. The Watchtower has gone beyond the research that some think,  a single scholars work should become, impressive. GeraldÂ’s work is not. Just like The Pope is opening up a new interpretation for Yahweh. The new finding expresses the name Yahwe.

These different characteristics donÂ’t amount to the exhausted research already done since Yahwe can be seen as just, another form for Yahweh.

Therefore, in that sense, you are correct, The NWT committee has done an excellent job of interpreting scripture as new evidence comes to light. JWÂ’s can be proud of their interpretation of scripture.

So, I don’t believe a publishing house such as the University Press of America is well qualified to give “critical” reviews even though it does peer reviews for publishers.

[JW Insider]

12 hours ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

http://realnewsrightnow.com/2017/02/pope-francis-orders-vatican-archives-reveal-gods-name-ending-centuries-secrecy/

When I see the word "realnewsrightnow" in a website name, I am inclined to run the other way. I only saw this article when it first came out as a kind of "teaser" by the same author (Hobbus) whose previous article the same month was this one:

• Nevada Man Who Survived UFO Abduction Says Aliens Asked Him About Jesus Christ

• February 13, 2017by R. Hobbus J.D.

• HENDERSON, Nv. – A Nevada man who claims he was abducted by aliens from outer space last month says his extraterrestrial kidnappers attempted to convert him to Christianity while he was aboard their spacecraft.

-----that should be enough to get the idea----

At any rate, you say that what finally came out of this, whether fake news or real, was "Yahwe" which of course was already one of the 12th century AD versions of the name that was sometimes printed as "Jahve" (and still is in some language translations: Dutch, German, etc.) If you have any links with evidence referring to any follow-up on this, then I will stop believing that "realnewsrightnow" is anything more than a fake news outlet which was likely intended by the author to show how gullible people are.

12 hours ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

By this standard, Gerard Gertoux brings nothing new to the table, and he is certainly not a scholar to be admired for his work.

I'm not worried about admiring anyone for their work. I'm concerned about what kinds of evidence people who have studied the evidence have brought to the table. What he has brought is clearly something new in that it presents a different conclusion to some of the lines of evidence. I think you agree that it is different from the Watchtower's conclusions.

12 hours ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

What interested me? How mindful it is not to have this scholars information violated when it is done with the Watchtower literature at every turn.

I don't wish to abuse anyone's copyrights. Whether the WTBTS, CCJW, Gertoux's, Wilkinson's, or any others. But I hope that more people will be exposed to the current lines of research out there to be able to either counter it, critique it, or even respect it. While I agree that the WTBTS copyrights have been abused all over the Internet, I doubt that the anonymous authors are really making an argument that quotations from Watchtower publications should be limited when it comes to attempting to fulfill our Christian obligation of: CONTINUALLY testing and proving our faith (2 Cor 13:5), pay CONSTANT attention to our teaching (1 Tim 4:16), and bringing out of our treasure store things both old and new (Matthew 13:52) , and NOT HOLDING BACK from telling publicly any of the things that are profitable (Acts 20:20), and not hiding things under a measuring basket but shouting them from the rooftops. (Matt 5:14-16, etc).  

[Anna]

I haven't had a chance to look at Gerard's paper yet, as I need to settle down properly for that, with a cup of coffee or something, but I was wondering why the pronunciation should be so important...

I took a quick peek at what wikipedia had to say about the topic of Jehovah, and with regard to the pronunciation, one of the quotes mentions a scholar named Francis B Dennio who in the Journal of Biblical Literature, said: "Jehovah misrepresents Yahweh no more than Jeremiah misrepresents Yirmeyahu. The settled connotations of Isaiah and Jeremiah forbid questioning their right." Dennio argued that the form "Jehovah" is not a barbarism, but is the best English form available, being that it has for centuries gathered the necessary connotations and associations for valid use in English".

 

[Anna]

The name "Jehovah" on the dome of the Old Catholic St. Martinskirche in Olten, Switzerland, 1521 (wikipedia)

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

The Watchtower has gone beyond the research that some think,  a single scholars work should become, impressive. Gerald’s work is not.

I think you are saying that the Watchtower's research here is already beyond impressive. I agree that on this topic the Watchtower's research is especially impressive. We have excellent explanations for the reasons the NWT contains God's Name so many times, and numerous examples and manuscript facsimiles to help us understand the LXX examples which have informed the decisions made for adding "Jehovah" to the Greek Scriptures. I think you are also saying that we shouldn't think of a single scholar's work as impressive, or at least we shouldn't think of Gertoux's work as impressive. This is just a statement, however, unless you are ready to counter the lines of evidence used or his conclusions. But again, I hope that this topic does not turn into a debate about whether a particular person or his research is "impressive." I hope that we can look at the evidence itself without reference to what we think of the people behind it. It will always happen to some extent but let's deal with evidence, not with general statements that supposedly allow us to be dismissive of someone's work.

1 hour ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

Just like The Pope is opening up a new interpretation for Yahweh. The new finding expresses the name Yahwe.

Yes, I agree that this isn't impressive either, just as you imply since it's not so different than just another form of Yahweh, which is already known and accepted. Of course, I'd also like to see a link evidencing this "new interpretation" by the Pope.

1 hour ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

Therefore, in that sense, you are correct, The NWT committee has done an excellent job of interpreting scripture as new evidence comes to light. JW’s can be proud of their interpretation of scripture.

Absolutely.

1 hour ago, alvi languore insanabili said:

So, I don’t believe a publishing house such as the University Press of America is well qualified to give “critical” reviews even though it does peer reviews for publishers.

I didn't see any examples or evidence that they have done a poor job, or not. I hope to avoid empty claims. I might offer some of these myself because we all bring our opinions to the table. I hope someone will point out the places where I do the same. There will be times when some of us can agree with each other that something appears to be true by consensus or "common sense" and we can move on without going to the trouble of finding evidence to back up our opinions. But when it comes to merely denigrating the qualifications of a person or group, I hope we can back up such claims with evidence if asked.

The work of Wilkinson seems like it's another useful resource which I would be willing to discuss as "another place to start" for exactly the same reasons that I thought Gertoux's work would be a good "place to start." I hope you will feel free to explain what you think he brings to the table that might be useful.