The modern Bible correctly records the words of God

"As far as my reference to Me'ah, it is the root of Bmai and is listed in BLB, Strong's, and Hebrew lexicon as the word used." It certainly is the root word of the word used for "belly"! I didn't know that, so yay I learned something! But it's not actually the word used, it is only the root form of the word used. I think you're primarily using the Blue Letter Bible. Is that correct? If so, in the tool bar where you access the Interlinear Bible, there is also a tab for cross-referencing. If you cross-reference this verse, the word for "belly" does not come up anywhere else in the Bible! I copied it here, Phrase from KJV [?]Correlating VersesTSK Help the LORD Jon 4:6; Gen 1:21; Psa 104:25,26; Hab 3:2 in Mat 12:40; Mat 16:4; Luk 11:30 belly Heb. bowels. The same goes for the Strong's Concordance, the word used here for "was in the belly" is not used anywhere else in the Bible to my knowledge. (The Hebrew word isn't actually one word for belly, it's a word meaning "was in the belly".) So while the word me'ah might be the root word, it's not the full word that is translated in this passage. I'm not sure if your last sentence in this paragraph is saying that you agree that the word is not "me'ah", if that's what you were saying, I apologize for driving a moot point! On to the fun point! I actually don't have any qualms with the argument that we are to honor and call on the name of God. That seems totally reasonable to me. This is where I take contention, "To your assertion that Father Yah's Name is unpronounceable, I disagree." This is where I will focus for now. I don't think it is seriously disputed that often our English names for Bible characters were their actual given names, because Hebrew names don't translate into English. For instance, Joshua was actually something like yehoshua Moses was actually something like Mosheh Solomon was actually something like Shelomoh To be fair, some names like David and Abraham translate relatively well. But it should come as no surprise that if God's name were translated into English, it would likely undergo a significant change like the word that roughly is "Yehoshua" when translated into English "Joshua". In fact, we can know with a large degree of certainty that it WOULD have, because as you and I have both said, the closest thing we can get to the translation of God's name in English is Tetragrammoton YHWH, which is certainly unpronounceable in English. Do you contest this claim, or do you believe "YHWH" to be pronounceable in English? The only way to make it pronounceable is to throw in vowels like we did the names of other Biblical characters. You mentioned the word "Yehudah" meaning "Judah". In Hebrew (writing) there are no vowels. So actually, the "e" "u" and "a" in this transliteration are added. A somewhat direct translation might be "YHDH". Obviously, the translators added in vowels to make it readable, which is just fine if one is describing "just" Judah. But as you have pointed out numerous times, the name of God is VERY important, and the translators apparently did not want to throw in vowels the way they had with other names, because the name was very, very important. Would they probably have gotten the vowels right? Based on how detail obsessive the makers of the KJV seemed to be, they probably would have. But they didn't want to play the guessing game. So, you would agree that an English translation of the name God gave the Israelites would not be the same name recorded in the texts being translated, correct? I honestly do not know how the subsequent paragraph assists your argument. Perhaps you could rephrase it? Yes, if you transliterate the Hebrew word for Judah and take away the Daleth you get roughly the transliterated word for God. I am not sure what the relevance of that is. I do not see the issue with translating the meaning of God's name, either. Did I miss that, or could you rephrase it perhaps? I think this was your alternative explanation, "Your mention of Exodus 3:13 is perfect as "I am" is HaYah and helps illustrate my point." Is that correct? Again (correct me if I am wrong) HaYah is only the root word. The actual word that is used is roughly "Eh-Yeh. " But I really don't see how this assists your argument, would you mind elaborating? As to the mentioning of the meaning of Ba'al, what is being argued? I am not sure what this supports. Some countries call their leader "President", while other countries also call their leader "President". Some religions call their god "lord", others call their God "Lord". I am not sure I follow. Could you please rephrase this? And the next few paragraphs talk about the importance of God's name, which I have no objection to, and the superiority of God's ways over man's ways, which I certainly have no objection to. Finally, of course I must ask, what would you prefer the translators have used instead of "LORD"? Both "Jehovah" and "Yahweh" add in vowels, where the actual Hebrew would have no vowels, and both run the risk of mispronouncing the Name aloud, even if so. "LORD" seems like a reasonable translation to me (for it seems to put the same meaning into an English word, which is usually the point of translation apparently with the occasional exception of names,) but what alternative would you prefer? I am honored this is your first debate! I will try to make an outstanding impression, I'm sure!