For all Christians: Do you believe that the true and rightful name of God Almighty is "Jehovah"?

Question

I came across more than enough questions about the JW's Holy Bible being falsely written and they claim the only change made was that they PUT BACK God's name in the Bible. Everything else is the same as the other Bibles. Now the number one reason for my question is if you believe that is God's name rightful and true, and your Bible like mine (NIV) did obsolete His name; then the Bible's that has not the True Name can it still be considered "Holy"? If these other Bible's did not put the True God in their Bible, how can it be known as "The Holy Bible"? Think about it. So there is ONLY ONE True Church then there must be ONLY ONE True Bible...............right or wrong?

I read all your answer's but no one gave a thought on the second part. And that is, now that there should be ONE True Church, then there should be ONE True Holy Bible? That ONE True Church will definitely have their own Holy Bible!

Dear TeeM, yes I did admit my NIV obsoleted God's name (Jehovah or Yahweh) entirely. Jesus name is in there. My NIV Ephesian 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you are called to one hope when you were called (5) one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all and in all. Now the word ALL, you are saying only in that One True Church? Or could that mean ALL that was baptized no matter the religion as long as Jesus is their Christ and Saviour?

Answer 1

Should Jehovah or Yahweh be in the NIV?


Why did the recently published “New International Version” (NIV) of the Bible fail to use the name of God where it appears about 7,000 times in ancient Bible manuscripts? In response to a person who inquired about this, Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV’s committee wrote:

“Here is why we did not: You are right that Jehovah is a distinctive name for God and ideally we should have used it. But we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of throwing that down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as, ‘Yahweh is my shepherd.’ Immediately, we would have translated for nothing. Nobody would have used it. Oh, maybe you and a handful [of] others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to get two million to read it—that is how many have bought it to date—and to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the correct translation of Yahweh. . . . It was a hard decision, and many of our translators agree with you.”


Even the translators of the NIV agreed that God's name should be in the Holy Bible.

Why did they leave it out?

Tradition.

Is there only one true faith? Yes

1 Cor 8:5 For even though there are those who are called “gods,” whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many “gods” and many “lords,” 6 there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him.

Eph 4:3 earnestly endeavoring to observe the oneness of the spirit in the uniting bond of peace. 4 One body there is, and one spirit, even as YOU were called in the one hope to which YOU were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all [persons], who is over all and through all and in all.

Jehovah's Witnesses are the closest I've found to the faith of the 1st century Christian Congregation.

Edit ====
Please re- read 1 Cor 8:6

One God = Jehovah, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:3)

One Lord = Jesus, whom Jehovah appointed over all.
(with exception of himself 1Cor 15:27)

One body = The one true Christian Congregation (how to identify the Christian Congregation is another question. Not all road lead to life, only the cramped and narrow road Matt 7:13)

http://www.watchtower.org/e/rq/index.htm

http://www.watchtower.org/e/20040601/article_01.htm

One baptism = Full immersion (same as being buried) in recognition of Jehovah God, his Son the anointed, and the power of the holy spirit.

‘All’

Jehovah as the only true God is above ALL, Jesus as the ransom died for ALL, Jesus is the only Way for ALL to reach Jehovah,

But this doesn’t mean all people worship Jehovah as he wants.
This doesn’t mean all accept the ransom of Jesus
This doesn’t mean all follow Christ as the Way.

Salvation and true worship is available to All, but it is up to the individual to accept the provisions Jehovah has provided.

In Rev chap. 1-3 Jesus wrote to congregations. Most of Paul writings are to Congregations.

Paul said we must speak in agreement, and not forsake the meeting together. 1 Cor 1:10; Heb 10:23-25

I hope this helps

.

Answer 2

PastorArt gave an especially good (and accurate) answer to the first part of your question. He neglected to indicate the known source of the name "Jehovah" (a mistaken combination of the tetragrammaton, YHWH, with the vowels of Adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord). He also failed to mention that this does not definitely *rule out* Jehovah as the proper pronunciation, though it does seem unlikely because of the "J" thing mentioned by some other answerers.

About the New World Translation (NWT) - this is an excellent study bible, but you need to get the "with references" edition to get a *good* grip on some of the alterations that they have made. Even in the smaller edition, they have appendices which explain the *majority* of "changes". There are quite a few "odd" translations, however, such as translating the words for "holy spirit" as "God's active force". When reading this version, you have to be aware of JW biases in the translation. There are only a few such biases that are obvious (John chapter 1 is another), so this bible *can* be very valuable if this bias is kept in mind. (My review: http://www.jimpettis.com/bibles/nwt.htm )

God's name in the bible - the only version I know that uses a transliteration of the *actual* words that are used for God is the New Jerusalem Bible. This is my favorite bible, for this and other reasons. Note that the word "Lord" *is* translated (since it is a standard Hebrew and Greek word), and the word "Lord" is used throughout the NT in the Greek. The best way to determine if the word Lord in the NT refers to God of the OT is references - another excellent reason for getting the NJB. My review http://www.jimpettis.com/bibles/njb.htm ). Get the Regular Edition if you can find it - the Standard Edition has reduced the study notes. My biggest complaint - the words Messiah and Christ are not translated (but I know of no version that does this).

It seems logical to say that there must be only one true bible - the one containing nothing except the words actually inspired by God. If there were such a bible, it would be written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. This is because something is *always* lost in translation, and bias *always* has an effect on translation. So we know that no English bible is our theoretical "true" bible.

There is also no single original-language version of *any* of the books in our bibles. Thus, if there *is* a "true" bible extant, we cannot determine which manuscript(s) are they. Among the dead sea scrolls are several of the oldest OT manuscripts that we have - and we know that they are mostly at least 500 years after the originals. That means 500 years of copying copies of copies of copies by hand - by human, error-prone hands. There are passages in books of the OT that are untranslatable - either because there are words that we don't know the meaning of, or because these unknown words are the result of copy errors.

SO, there is no such thing as a "true" or original bible, even in the original languages - at least, that we know of. What does this mean about the inspired word of God? The King James translators claimed that reading *any* version was beneficial to the reader - and this is a very wise statement to make. If our objective is to learn how God wants us to live, then reading the bible is the best way we can learn the *specifics* of how we should live. Reading the inspired word of God - no matter how adulterated - is the best mechanism we have of learning the will of God.

Can an "altered" bible be considered holy? I would say if the *intent* of the translator(s), no matter how misguided in their humanity, was to make an accurate translation of the inspired word of God, then that bible is holy. There are no doubt some versions that are closer to the wholly inspired word of God than others, but we can't tell which is closest with any certainty. We have to make due with the best that we have, and remember that God approves our study of the scriptures.

A final interesting point: it is plain from quotes in the NT that most, if not all, of the NT authors were using a *Greek translation* of the OT (known as the Septuagint). *Even Jesus and the apostles* used a translation. If a translation was good enough for them, then it's good enough for me. (Some about the bible - the books and the languages http://www.jimpettis.com/bibles/dc.htm ).

I hope that you can manage to wade through this lengthy answer, and I hope it helps you to continue your studies of scripture.

Jim

Answer 3

In English, God's name is pronounced "Jehovah." In other languages, it is pronunced differently.

To those who say there is no "j" in Hebrew, you dont seem to have a problem saying "Jesus" or Jeremiah or "Elijah." So why do you insist that "Jehovah" is wrong? Be consistent!

God's name in other languages:

Awabakal - Yehóa
Bugotu - Jihova
Cantonese - Yehwowah
Danish - Jehova
Dutch - Jehovah
Efik - Jehovah
English - Jehovah
Fijian - Jiova
Finnish - Jehova
French - Jéhovah
Futuna - Ihova
German - Jehova
Hungarian - Jehova
Igbo - Jehova
Italian - Geova
Japanese - Ehoba
Maori - Ihowa
Motu - Iehova
Mwala-Malu - Jihova
Narrinyeri - Jehovah
Nembe - Jihova
Petats - Jihouva
Polish - Jehowa
Portuguese - Jeová
Romanian - Iehova
Samoan - Ieova
Sotho - Jehova
Spanish - Jehová
Swahili - Yehova
Swedish - Jehova
Tahitian - Iehova
Tagalog - Jehova
Tongan - Jihova
Venda - Yehova
Xhosa - uYehova
Yoruba - Jehofah
Zulu - uJehova

Answer 4

Wrong!

Jehovah was the name the King James translators came up with but they only used it on rare occations.

The original Hebrew is: YHWH

Originally Hebrew didn't have any vowels, and was written right to left, although some of the consonants carry with them the indication of associated vowel sounds.For instance, the "Y" is associated with the sound of a "long e", as in "team". The H is associated with the sound of a "short a" as "ah!" The Vav is associated with the vowel "u" and produces the sound in the word "cool." Thus, the name of the Creator sounds something like "ee-ah oo' ah", with the accent on the second of the three syllables, as is the pronunciation convention in Hebrew.

A brief study in linguistics.

To translate is to explain the meaning of one language using the words of another.

To transliterate is to spell a word using the letters of another language.

"I am" is the English translation of the meaning of God's personal name.

The English transliteration of God's personal name is YHWH, with vowels added, YAHWEH, translated to I AM WHO I AM.

So with the vowels added we get Yahweh, not Jehovah.

The literal translation is "I am" or "I am who I am"

In other words, the root word is the verb "to be".

Because the name of God was considered by the ancient Jews to be to Holy to Pronounce, they started to use the word, "Lord" instead.

When using an English translation of the Bible, and this is true is most English translations, when you see the word LORD typed out in small UPPER case letters, you know that the original Hebrew word was: YHWH

And to this day we don't really know how to pronounce it but Yahweh is our best guess.

Since we know much more about the Hebrew language today than the KJV translators did, we know that Jehovah is wrong.

Pastor Art

Answer 5

Gods name is Jehovah, just because your bible does not have Jehovah in it does not mean that it is not holy. When the bible was rewitten they excluded God's name and replaced it with LORD, and GOD. But yes God' name is JEHOVAH that's why come to your doors to give you a better understanding of the bible.We do belive in Jesus and his father jehovah

Answer 6

It is my understanding that the word Jehovah is not so much a name as it is a description. Even the word God means an all powerful supreme being..rather than the name of an individual. For example, in the first commandment it is said that God said that we are not to have any other Gods before Him. He used the term God as a description, not as a name. Our God is quoted as simply referring to himself as "I AM"

Answer 7

To know the true name of a thing is to have power over it. No man can know the true Name of God for this reason. Jehovah is a corruption of YHWH, the tetragrammaton denoting His Name. The One True Church is not a denomination, but a collection of people who have developed a real relationship with Jesus. And there is only one Bible, although there are a number of translations and mistranslations. The JW's use one of the poorer mistranslations. I might trust it over the Reader's Digest Bible, but not over any other.

Answer 8

Don´t waste too much time trying to convince them about the true name of God Jehovah, some of them claim that the ancient translator were wrong how do they know if is not now that are wrong, there is a plan to remove the name of Jehovah and the more close we are of the end of this system the more you will see tha negation of the truth, only two verse of the bible to consider.

Psalms 14:1-2 "The senseless one has said in his heart:
“There is no Jehovah.”
They have acted ruinously, they have acted detestably in [their] dealing.
There is no one doing good.
2 As for Jehovah, he has looked down from heaven itself upon the sons of men,
To see whether there exists anyone having insight, anyone seeking Jehovah.

And 2 Timothy 3:1-5 "But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, 3 having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, 4 betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away."

"headstrong and puffed up [with pride]" but the better part of this "having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away." meaning religious people but false.

Answer 9

The Jews believed that the name of God was to holy to write out, but there are other names for God in the Bible also,

Lion of Judah
Yahweh
Yashua
Great and wonderful counselor, and etc.

Answer 10

He is known by alot of names; I Am to be a starter.Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, Yahweh,Yeshua......
King of Kings,Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace,Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Risen Lord,Lion and the Lamb, Alpha and Omega!.......