Jehovah
Jehovah () is a Latinization of the Hebrew "Yəhōwā", one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. It is considered one of the seven names of God in Judaism and one of the names of God in Christianity. The consensus among scholars is that the historical vocalization of the Tetragrammaton at the time of the redaction of the Torah (6th century BCE) is most likely Yahweh. The historical vocalization was lost because in Second Temple Judaism, during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton  came to be avoided, being substituted with Adonai ("my Lord"). The Hebrew vowel points of "Adonai" were added to the Tetragrammaton by the Masoretes, and the resulting form was transliterated around the 12th century as "Yehowah". The derived forms "Iehouah" and "Jehovah" first appeared in the 16th century. "Jehovah" was first introduced by William Tyndale in his translation of Exodus 6:3, and appears in some other early English translations including the Geneva Bible and the King James Version. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops states that in order to pronounce the Tetragrammaton "it is necessary to introduce vowels that  alter the written and spoken forms of the name (i.e. "Yahweh" or "Jehovah")." "Jehovah" appears in the Old Testament of some widely used translations including the American Standard Version (1901) and Young's Literal Translation (1862, 1899); the New World Translation (1961, 2013) uses "Jehovah" in both the Old and New Testaments. "Jehovah" does not appear in most mainstream English translations, some of which use Yahweh but most continue to use "Lord" or "" to represent the Tetragrammaton. Pronunciation. Most scholars believe "Jehovah" (also transliterated as "Yehowah") to be a hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters "JHVH" with the  vowels of "Adonai". Some hold that there is evidence that a form of the Tetragrammaton similar to "Jehovah" may have been in use in Semitic and Greek phonetic texts and artifacts from Late Antiquity. Others say that it is the pronunciation "Yahweh" that is testified in both Christian and pagan texts of the early Christian era. Some Karaite Jews, as proponents of the rendering "Jehovah", state that although the original pronunciation of has been obscured by disuse of the spoken name according to oral Rabbinic law, well-established English transliterations of other Hebrew personal names are accepted in normal usage , such as Joshua, Jeremiah, Isaiah or Jesus, for which the original pronunciations may be unknown. They also point out that "the English form "Jehovah" is quite simply an Anglicized form of Yhovah," and preserves the four Hebrew consonants "YHVH" (with the introduction of the "J" sound in English). Some argue that "Jehovah" is preferable to "Yahweh", based on their conclusion that the Tetragrammaton was likely tri-syllabic originally, and that modern forms should therefore also have three syllables. Biblical scholar Francis B. Dennio, in an article he wrote, 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. According to a Jewish tradition developed during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the Tetragrammaton is written but not pronounced. When read, substitute terms replace the divine name where "Yəhōwāh" appears in the text. It is widely assumed, as proposed by the 19th-century Hebrew scholar Gesenius, that the vowels of  the substitutes of the name—"Adonai" (Lord) and "Elohim" (God)—were inserted by the Masoretes to indicate that these substitutes were to be used. When precedes or follows "Adonai", the Masoretes placed the vowel points of "Elohim" into the Tetragrammaton, producing a different vocalization of the Tetragrammaton "Yéhōvīh", which was read as "Elohim". Based on this reasoning, the form ("Jehovah") has been characterized by some as a "hybrid form", and even "a philological impossibility". Early modern translators disregarded the practice of reading "Adonai" (or its equivalents in Greek and Latin, "Κύριος" and "Dominus") in place of the Tetragrammaton and instead combined the  four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton with the vowel points that, except in synagogue scrolls, accompanied them, resulting in the form "Jehovah". This form, which first took effect in works dated 1278 and 1303, was adopted in Tyndale's and some other Protestant translations of the Bible. In the 1560 "Geneva Bible", the Tetragrammaton is translated as "Jehovah" six times, four as the proper name, and two as place-names. In the 1611 "King James Version", "Jehovah" occurred seven times. In the 1885 "English Revised Version", the form "Jehovah" occurs twelve times. In the 1901 "American Standard Version" the form  Je-ho’vah became the regular English rendering of the Hebrew , all throughout, in preference to the previously dominant "the ", which is generally used in the King James Version. It is also used in Christian hymns such as the 1771 hymn, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah". Development. The most widespread theory is that the Hebrew term has the vowel points of ("adonai"). Using the vowels of "adonai", the composite "hataf patah" under the guttural "alef" becomes a "sheva" under the "yod" , the "holam" is placed over the first "he" , and the "qamats" is placed under the "vav" , giving ("Jehovah"). When  the two names, and , occur together, the former is pointed with a "hataf segol" under the "yod" and a "hiriq" under the second "he" , giving , to indicate that it is to be read as ("elohim") in order to avoid "adonai" being repeated. Taking the spellings at face value may have been as a result of not knowing about the Q're perpetuum, resulting in the transliteration "Yehowah" and derived variants. Emil G. Hirsch was among the modern scholars that recognized "Jehovah" to be "grammatically impossible". Scholars are not in total agreement as to why does not have precisely the same vowel  points as "adonai". The use of the composite "hataf segol" in cases where the name is to be read, ""elohim"", has led to the opinion that the composite "hataf patah" ought to have been used to indicate the reading, ""adonai"". It has been argued conversely that the disuse of the "patah" is consistent with the Babylonian system, in which the composite is uncommon. Vowel points of and. The table below shows the vowel points of "Yehovah" and "Adonay", indicating the simple "sheva" in "Yehovah" in contrast to the "hataf patah" in "Adonay". As indicated to the right, the vowel points  used when "YHWH" is intended to be pronounced as "Adonai" are slightly different to those used in "Adonai" itself. The difference between the vowel points of "’ǎdônây" and "YHWH" is explained by the rules of Hebrew morphology and phonetics. "Sheva" and "hataf-patah" were allophones of the same phoneme used in different situations: "hataf-patah" on glottal consonants including "aleph" (such as the first letter in "Adonai"), and simple "sheva" on other consonants (such as the "Y" in "YHWH"). Introduction into English. The earliest available Latin text to use a vocalization similar to "Jehovah" dates from the 13th century. The  Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon suggested that the pronunciation "Jehovah" was unknown until 1520 when it was introduced by Galatinus, who defended its use. In English it appeared in William Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch ("The Five Books of Moses") published in 1530 in Germany, where Tyndale had studied since 1524, possibly in one or more of the universities at Wittenberg, Worms and Marburg, where Hebrew was taught. The spelling used by Tyndale was "Iehouah"; at that time, "I" was not distinguished from J, and U was not distinguished from V. The original 1611 printing of the Authorized King James  Version used "Iehouah". Tyndale wrote about the divine name: "IEHOUAH [Jehovah], is God's name; neither is any creature so called; and it is as much to say as, One that is of himself, and dependeth of nothing. Moreover, as oft as thou seest in great letters (except there be any error in the printing), it is in Hebrew "Iehouah", Thou that art; or, He that is." The name is also found in a 1651 edition of Ramón Martí's "Pugio fidei". The name "Jehovah" (initially as "Iehouah") appeared in all early Protestant Bibles in English, except Coverdale's translation  in 1535. The Roman Catholic Douay–Rheims Bible used "the Lord", corresponding to the Latin Vulgate's use of "Dominus" (Latin for "Adonai", "Lord") to represent the Tetragrammaton. The "Authorized King James Version", which used "" in a few places, most frequently gave "the " as the equivalent of the Tetragrammaton. The form "Iehouah" appeared in John Rogers' "Matthew Bible" in 1537, the "Great Bible" of 1539, the "Geneva Bible" of 1560, "Bishop's Bible" of 1568 and the "King James Version" of 1611. More recently, "Jehovah" has been used in the "Revised Version" of 1885, the "American Standard Version" in 1901 , and the "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1961. At , where the King James Version has "Jehovah", the "Revised Standard Version" (1952), the "New American Standard Bible" (1971), the "New International Version" (1978), the "New King James Version" (1982), the "New Revised Standard Version" (1989), the "New Century Version" (1991), and the "Contemporary English Version" (1995) give "" or "Lord" as their rendering of the Tetragrammaton, while the "New Jerusalem Bible" (1985), the "Amplified Bible" (1987), the "New Living Translation" (1996, revised 2007), and the "Holman Christian Standard Bible" (2004) use the form "Yahweh". Hebrew  vowel points. Modern guides to biblical Hebrew grammar, such as Duane A Garrett's "A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew" state that the Hebrew vowel points now found in printed Hebrew Bibles were invented in the second half of the first millennium AD, long after the texts were written. This is indicated in the authoritative "Hebrew Grammar" of Gesenius, and "Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia", and is acknowledged even by those who say that guides to Hebrew are perpetuating "scholarly myths". "Jehovist" scholars, largely earlier than the 20th century, who believe to be the original pronunciation of the divine name, argue  that the Hebraic vowel-points and accents were known to writers of the scriptures in antiquity and that both Scripture and history argue in favor of their "ab origine" status to the Hebrew language. Some members of Karaite Judaism, such as Nehemia Gordon, hold this view. The antiquity of the vowel points and of the rendering "Jehovah" was defended by various scholars, including Michaelis, Drach, Stier, William Fulke (1583), Johannes Buxtorf, his son Johannes Buxtorf II, and John Owen (17th century); Peter Whitfield and John Gill (18th century), John Moncrieff (19th century), Johann Friedrich von Meyer (1832) Thomas D. Ross  has given an account of the controversy on this matter in England down to 1833. G. A. Riplinger, John Hinton, Thomas M. Strouse, are more recent defenders of the authenticity of the vowel points. Proponents of pre-Christian origin. 18th-century theologian John Gill puts forward the arguments of 17th-century Johannes Buxtorf II and others in his writing, "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents". He argued for an extreme antiquity of their use, rejecting the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masoretes. Gill presented writings, including passages of  scripture, that he interpreted as supportive of his "Jehovist" viewpoint that the Old Testament must have included vowel-points and accents. He claimed that the use of Hebrew vowel points of , and therefore of the name "Jehovah" , is documented from before 200 BCE, and even back to Adam, citing Jewish tradition that Hebrew was the first language. He argued that throughout this history the Masoretes did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citing Karaite authorities Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov (1699) and his associates, who stated that "all our  wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God." The argument between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism on whether it was lawful to pronounce the name represented by the Tetragrammaton is claimed to show that some copies have always been pointed (voweled) and that some copies were not pointed with the vowels because of "oral law", for control of interpretation by some Judeo sects, including non-pointed copies in synagogues. Gill claimed that the pronunciation can be traced back to early  historical sources which indicate that vowel points and/or accents were used in their time. Sources Gill claimed supported his view include: Gill quoted Elia Levita, who said, "There is no syllable without a point, and there is no word without an accent," as showing that the vowel points and the accents found in printed Hebrew Bibles have a dependence on each other, and so Gill attributed the same antiquity to the accents as to the vowel points. Gill acknowledged that Levita, "first asserted the vowel points were invented by "the men of Tiberias", but made reference to his condition that  if anyone could convince him that his opinion was contrary to the book of Zohar, he should be content to have it rejected. Gill then alludes to the book of Zohar, stating that rabbis declared it older than the Masoretes, and that it attests to the vowel-points and accents. William Fulke, John Gill, John Owen, and others held that Jesus Christ referred to a Hebrew vowel point or accent at , indicated in the King James Version by the word "tittle". The 1602 Spanish Bible (Reina-Valera/Cipriano de Valera) used the name "Iehova" and gave a lengthy defense of  the pronunciation "Jehovah" in its preface. Proponents of later origin. Despite Jehovist claims that vowel signs are necessary for reading and understanding Hebrew, modern Hebrew (apart from young children's books, some formal poetry and Hebrew primers for new immigrants), is written without vowel points. The Torah scrolls do not include vowel points, and ancient Hebrew was written without vowel signs. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1946 and dated from 400 BC to 70 AD, include texts from the Torah or Pentateuch and from other parts of the Hebrew Bible, and have provided documentary evidence that, in spite of  claims to the contrary, the original Hebrew texts were in fact written without vowel points. Menahem Mansoor's "The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide" claims the vowel points found in printed Hebrew Bibles were devised in the 9th and 10th centuries. Gill's view that the Hebrew vowel points were in use at the time of Ezra or even since the origin of the Hebrew language is stated in an early 19th-century study in opposition to "the opinion of most learned men in modern times", according to whom the vowel points had been "invented  since the time of Christ". The study presented the following considerations: Early modern arguments. In the 16th and 17th centuries, various arguments were presented for and against the transcription of the form "Jehovah". Summary of discourses. William Robertson Smith summarizes these discourses, concluding that "whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not "Jehovah"". Despite this, he consistently uses the name "Jehovah" throughout his dictionary and when translating Hebrew names. Some examples include "Isaiah" ["Jehovah's help or salvation"], "Jehoshua" ["Jehovah a helper"], "Jehu" ["Jehovah is He"]. In the entry, "Jehovah , Smith writes: JEHOVAH (, usually with the vowel points of ; but when the two occur together, the former is pointed , that is with the vowels of , as in Obad. i. 1, Hab. iii. 19:" This practice is also observed in many modern publications, such as the "New Compact Bible Dictionary" (Special Crusade Edition) of 1967 and "Peloubet's Bible Dictionary" of 1947. Usage in English Bible translations. The following versions of the Bible render the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" either exclusively or in selected verses: Bible translations with the divine name in the New Testament: Bible translations with the divine name in  both the Old Testament and the New Testament: render the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" either exclusively or in selected verses: Non-usage. The Douay Version of 1609 renders the phrase in Exodus 6:3 as "and my name Adonai", and in its footnote says: "Adonai is not the name here vttered to Moyses but is redde in place of the vnknowen name". The Challoner revision (1750) uses "ADONAI" with a note stating, "some moderns have framed the name Jehovah, unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or Christians." Various Messianic Jewish Bible translations use "Adonai" (Complete Jewish Bible (1998), Tree of Life  Version (2014) or "Hashem" (Orthodox Jewish Bible (2002)). A few sacred name Bibles use the Tetragrammaton instead of a generic title (e.g., the LORD) or a conjectural transliteration (e.g., Yahweh or Jehovah): Most modern translations exclusively use "Lord" or "", generally indicating that the corresponding Hebrew is "Yahweh" or "YHWH" (not "JHVH"), and in some cases saying that this name is "traditionally" transliterated as "Jehovah": A few translations use titles such as The "Eternal": Some translations use both "Yahweh" and "": Some translate the Tetragrammaton exclusively as "Yahweh": Other usage. Following the Middle Ages, before and after the Protestant Reformation some churches  and public buildings across Europe were decorated with variants and cognates of "Jehovah". For example, the Coat of Arms of Plymouth (UK) City Council bears the Latin inscription, "Turris fortissima est nomen Jehova" (English, "The name of Jehovah is the strongest tower"), derived from . Some lyrics of some Christian hymns include "Jehovah". The form also appears in some reference books and novels, appearing several times in the novel "The Greatest Story Ever Told," by Catholic author Fulton Oursler. Some religious groups, notably Jehovah's Witnesses and proponents of the King-James-Only movement, continue to use Jehovah as the only  name of God. In Mormonism, "Jehovah" is thought to be the name by which Jesus was known prior to his birth; references to "the " in the KJV Old Testament are therefore understood to be references to the pre-mortal Jesus, whereas God the Father, who is regarded as a separate individual, is sometimes referred to as "Elohim". "Jehovah" is twice rendered in the Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 22:2 and Moroni 10:34. Similar Latin and English transcriptions. Transcriptions of similar to "Jehovah" occurred as early as the 12th century.