jehovah? yahweh?

Question

are they both names for god? is there a difference, like christian and jewish?
thanks

Answer 1

The names "Jehovah" and "Yahweh" are both based on the four Hebrew letters Yod, Heh, Vau, and Heh. These are supposedly the four Hebrew letters that make up the name of God.

However, all of these Hebrew letters have multiple possible pronunciations, and no one knows what the correct way to pronounce them is to say the name of God.

To make things worse, ancient Hebrew did not contain any vowels. It was assumed that the reader would know what vowel sounds should be inserted between the consonants to get the correct pronunciation.

However, in some Hebrew words, any of these letters could be used to indicate some sort of vowel sound, as opposed to their original consonant sounds.

You can get many, many possible pronunciations from these four Hebrew letters together. You could even get the word "Yahoo" from these letters!

The "Jehovah" is probably very inaccurate. The J sound does not exist in standard Hebrew.

One belief concerning this name is that it is derived from God's supposed statement to Moses in the "Burning Bush" incident: "I Am That I Am". If this is the case, Yahweh would not so much be an actual name of God, it would be more of a self-description by God.

I've also read that if the statement "I Am That I Am" was made in the way that could be properly represented by the Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh combinations, then according to Hebrew grammatical rules, the first "I Am" would be in the masculine form and the second "I Am" would be in the feminine form. This would imply that God was saying he was both male and female. (This could be interpreted to mean that God was claiming to encompass all things).

Answer 2

Yes.

English and modern Hebrew rather than Christian and Jewish.

Both "Yahweh" and "Jehovah" seek to pronounce "the Tetragrammaton", which is the four-Hebrew-letter expression used in the bible (and elsewhere) to express the Divine Name of Almighty God (the Father). The four Hebrew characters are generally transliterated as "YHWH" (that is, each Hebrew character is directly replaced by a different character with the same sound in another language's character set).

So, it certainly SEEMS that Yahweh (which undeniably includes Y, H, W, and H) would more accurately pronounce the Tetragrammaton as it was pronounced by the ancient Hebrews. However, there is an enormous "but"...

Other common Hebrew names actually include the divine name WITHIN them, giving hints as to its original pronunciation. Increasingly, scholars are leaning toward a pronunciation similar to the three-syllable "Yehowah" rather than two-syllable "Yahweh".

If "Yehowah" is close to the correct pronunciation, then it becomes a much more subjective answer about whether "Yehowah" is more similar to "Jehovah" or "Yahweh". Many or most English speakers are likely to embrace the pronunciation which their predecessors embraced at least four hundred years ago.

"Jehovah".

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/na/

Answer 3

They're the same thing. The name of Israel's God was written in Hebrew with four letters-- YHWH --in Old Testament times. However, this sacred name came to be prohibited to say out loud, so the correct pronunciation (with vowels) was lost. Instead of pronouncing the sacred name, Jews called him Adonai (which means Lord). Later on, when Christians did not consider it prohibited to say the sacred name, they tried to reconstruct the pronunciation. The ancient Hebrew letters yod and waw (the Y and the W) had become pronounced by moderns as J and V (this is a complex process to explain). Then they applied the vowels from "Adonai" to the vowelless name JHVH--getting Jahovah, which we now say as Jehovah.
However, modern scholars have recognized that this is not likely the original pronunciation and consider "Yahweh" closer to what the Israelites actually called God. To answer your question, then, Jehovah and Yahweh are two versions of the same name, which was YHWH to the ancient Israelites. Which name you use now is largely a matter of personal preference, tradition, or education.

Answer 4

The Old Testament (which is the Jewish "Bible") is written in Hebrew. One of the names used frequently for God in the OT is the name "YWHW". It is written with no vowels in it. If YHWH was written with vowels, it would be "Yahweh".

Traditionally, the Jews do not speak the name "YWHW". They replace it with their word for "Lord" (Adonia). To help people remember to say "Adonia" rather then "YWHW", the Jews would scramble some of the vowels for Adonia into the word YWHW. The results was the word "Yahovah" or the English "Jehovah".

If you look in most English Bibles, you will find that the OT translators will follow the Jewish tradition, and translate the word "YWHW" as the English word "LORD" (all in capital letters) rather then as either Jehovah or Yahweh. Unless it is part of a longer name.

So "Jehovah" and "Yahweh" are just different ways of translating the same Hebrew name "YHWH".

Answer 5

Jehovah is the accepted Name of God in English.

Yahweh is the accepted Name of God in Hebrew.

When speaking English I use Jehovah,
When speaking Spanish I use Jehova

If I could speak Hebrew I would use Yawheh.

Yahweh (or the correct pronunciation) was use up till the 2nd century CE. It was at this time that the Jews started to replace the Name with the title Lord.

Unfortunitely, the later Christians at this time period followed the Jewish custom.

Prior to the 2nd century CE, God's name was found in personal letters and many other 'common' places.

Older Jews knew that using the name was allowed,

It was the taking the name in vain that was the sin.

.

Answer 6

They're both transliterations of the original Hebrew YHWH. The difference is that Jehovah came through German (making the Y a J).

Answer 7

Yahweh is the Hebrew translation of gods name of which many Hebrew scholars prefer to use. Jehovah is the English translation which many other people are more comfortable using.
Www.JW.org

Answer 8

Yahweh is a translation of the hebrew word yhvh which is a name for God just as Jehovah.

Answer 9

Yes there is a difference. "Yahweh" is the correct transliteration of the Hebrew word. "Jehovah" was an incorrect pronunciation made by someone ignorant of the Hebrew language.

Lulu - The name breaks out to "I Am", and there is no ambiguity about how those are pronounced in Hebrew, so the correct pronunciation is known.

Answer 10

Jehovah is incorrect, in Jewish Religion a superstition arose that it was bad to say the divine name. They added incorrect vowel points to it. With the incorrect points you couldn't say it in Hebrew but when you translate into English the word Jehovah occurs. Yahweh is the best guess scholars have made to re define the original divine name. So in short Yahweh is right, Jehovah is wrong.