This Lil Piggy asks: Why Jehovah? Why not Zeus?

Question

Beg to differ, There is no contemporary historical evidence of a Jesus of nazareth, Bethlehem wasn't on the map 2000 years ago, and the subsequent historical mentions of Jesus can just as well be interpolations by a catholic church which had a monopoly on record keeping in later europe...

Answer 1

The bible itself mentions exactly one personal name of Almighty God, with two forms:
1. יהוה (typically transliterated from Hebrew as "YHWH")
...and...
2. יה (a shortened form of the same, typically transliterated from Hebrew as "YH").


The organization perhaps most closely identified with the Divine Name is the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, and they have literature published in hundreds of languages (their website alone has articles in over 300). This extensive translating work has moved Jehovah's Witnesses to detail several dozen different respectful spellings and pronunciations of the Divine Name, all of which are honestly derived into various lingual tendencies from the original Hebrew יהוה ("YHWH") and יה ("YH").
http://watchtower.co.uk/languages.htm

Ten interesting variations of the Divine Name are shown on this webpage, in large print along the right side of the page:
http://watchtower.co.uk/e/20040122/article_01.htm


In English, both "Yahweh" and "Jehovah" have a long tradition of representing the Divine Name ("YHWH", also known as "the Tetragrammaton"). At first glance, it might seem 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".

Thus, in English, the three most common Biblical names for God (in order of usage) are Jehovah, Yahweh, and Yehowah. To complete the discussion, Exodus 34:14 metaphorically says that YHWH's name is "Jealous" and Exodus 3:14 says that God's name literally means "I SHALL PROVE TO BE WHAT I SHALL PROVE TO BE" and "I SHALL PROVE TO BE"
...(Exodus 3:13-14, NWT) Moses said to the true God: “[What if the Israelites] say to me, ‘What is his name?’ What shall I say to them?” At this God said to Moses: “I SHALL PROVE TO BE WHAT I SHALL PROVE TO BE.” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘I SHALL PROVE TO BE has sent me to you.’”
...Leeser, “I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE”
...Rotherham, “I WILL BECOME WHATSOEVER I PLEASE”


And to repeat, "God", "Lord", "Creator", and similar terms are NOT personal names but impersonal titles.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.co.uk/e/na/

Answer 2

Because Zeus is fiction.

Yes, there actually is contemporary evidence of Jesus of Nazareth. They're called gospels.

It's actually possible to prove that several of them were written within 5 years of Jesus' death. For example, Luke could not have written his any later because of the loss of genealogical information when Herod Antipas burned the Jewish genealogy library to the ground. Herod went into exile in 38 AD.

Also, none of the gospels give evidence of being written AFTER Jesus' death. For example, none of them make the mistake of naming famous people who lived in the last half of the 1st century, nor did they make the mistake of referring to events of later date, as most fictions do. Such details are always evident in stories written decades or centuries after the fact.

This would, of course, be completely impossible for someone who hadn't even been born yet. For example, if Mark wrote his gospel in 90 or 100 AD, he would have to have been born some time after 20 or 30 AD and could never have had the details to fake a gospel of that time. It's one thing to name the names, it's an entirely different matter to capture the culture accurately.

Examples:

John 2 mentions stone water jars at the wedding at Cana. Archaeologists have confirmed that these existed exclusively during the temple period. After the temple was burned, these mikveh jars were no longer manufactured (they went back to using clay).

The 2nd Chapter of Acts captures the phenomenon of dozens of ethnic groups in Jerusalem during Pentacost. This phenomenon ended when the temple was burned. Judea's language was Hebrew, and residents wouldn't even speak Aramaic. They were too proud.

Answer 3

It is in opposition to God's nature. For God is a holy God. God is the preferrred being of the universe. He is the writer of all matters (Isaiah forty four:24). He by myself is God (Isaiah forty five:21,22; forty six:nine; forty seven:eight). There have not ever been any Gods earlier than Him nor will there be any after Him (Isaiah forty three:10). God is God from all eternity (Psalm ninety:two). In Exodus three:14, God found out His identify to His individuals. The identify frequently recognized in English is Jehovah. This comes from the 4 Hebrew consonants that spell the identify of God. (See Tetragrammaton.) God is a Trinity, is aware of all matters (one million John three:20), can do all matters (Jer. 32:17,27 - besides the ones matters in opposition to His nature like lie, holiday His phrase, cheat, scouse borrow, and many others.), and is far and wide at all times (Psalm 119:7-12).

Answer 4

For some of us it is Zeus/Ra/Odin/Thor instead of Jehovah ;-)


EDIT: "The God of the Bible - not only did He order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide - I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert - not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide - you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive - that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful." - Noam Chomsky

Zeus never admitted he was perfect. "God" tries to make us believe he is perfect love and perfect everything else.

I'll take my chances with a cheater over a mass murderer thankyouverymuch.

Answer 5

Because we can prove that Jesus Christ walked the Earth.

Because Zeus never died for me. All Zeus did was run around cheating on his wife and raping a bunch of women. Not really the kind of guy I want to worship, ya know?

EDIT - Got your AM status back, eh? Who'd ya kill? So did your question get deleted this time?
PIGGY - You're really, honestly, going to sit there and tell me that a million people went to their DEATHS for a guy who never even existed? Come now, let us reason together.

ULTRA VIOLET - The re-read the story, because Mary DID give her consent.

Answer 6

Last Ent Wife did you have Zeus confused with Mohammed ?
J/K

We can prove he walked the earth and we can prove the origins of many made up "gods"

Answer 7

Jehovah is God's name.
Jesus is God's son's name.
Jehovah and Jesus both exist.
Zeus does not.

Answer 8

Jesus was the name of the Sun God,Joseph was the Moon God,God was the Earth God,and Satan was the name of falling stars!...

Answer 9

JEHOVAH IS THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS.“God . . . created all things.” (Eph. 3:9) Thus everything has the same Great Designer.

“All things came into existence through him [God’s only-begotten Son, who became Jesus Christ when on earth], and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.” (John 1:3) Thus there was one Master Worker through whom Jehovah performed his works of creation.—Prov. 8:22, 30, 31.

What is the origin of the raw material of which the universe is made?

Scientists have learned that matter is a concentrated form of energy. This is demonstrated with the explosion of nuclear weapons. Astrophysicist Josip Kleczek states: “Most and possibly all elementary particles may be created by materialization of energy.”—The Universe (Boston, 1976), Vol. 11, p. 17.

From where could such energy come? After asking, “Who has created these things [the stars and planets]?”, the Bible states regarding Jehovah God, “Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing.” (Isa. 40:26) So God himself is the Source of all the “dynamic energy” that was needed to create the universe.

The Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures

Heb., הוהי (YHWH)

“Jehovah” (Heb., הוהי, YHWH), God’s personal name, first occurs in Ge 2:4. The divine name is a verb, the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb הוה (ha·wah′, “to become”). Therefore, the divine name means “He Causes to Become.” This reveals Jehovah as the One who, with progressive action, causes himself to become the Fulfiller of promises, the One who always brings his purposes to realization. See Ge 2:4 ftn, “Jehovah”; App 3C. Compare Ex 3:14 ftn.

The greatest indignity that modern translators render to the Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures is the removal or the concealing of his peculiar personal name. Actually his name occurs in the Hebrew text 6,828 times as הוהי (YHWH or JHVH), generally referred to as the Tetragrammaton (literally meaning “having four letters”). By using the name “Jehovah,” we have held closely to the original-language texts and have not followed the practice of substituting titles such as “Lord,” “the Lord,” “Adonai” or “God” for the divine name, the Tetragrammaton.

Today, apart from a few fragments of the early Greek Septuagint where the sacred name is preserved in Hebrew, only the Hebrew text has retained this most important name in its original form of four letters, הוהי (YHWH), the exact pronunciation of which has not been preserved. Current circulating texts of the Greek Septuagint (LXX), Syriac Peshitta (Sy) and Latin Vulgate (Vg) substitute the mere title “Lord” for God’s unique name.—See App 1C.

The text located in the U.S.S.R., namely, the Codex Leningrad B 19A, used for Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), vowel-points the Tetragrammaton to read Yehwah′, Yehwih′ and a number of times Yeho·wah′, as in Ge 3:14. The edition of the Hebrew text by Ginsburg (Gins.) vowel-points YHWH to read Yeho·wah′. While many translators favor the pronunciation “Yahweh,” the New World Translation continues to use the form “Jehovah” because of people’s familiarity with it for centuries. Moreover, it preserves, equally with other forms, the four letters of the divine name, YHWH or JHVH.—See ad under “Jehovah.”

The practice of substituting titles for the divine name that developed among the Jews was applied in later copies of the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and many other translations, ancient and modern. Therefore, A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott (LS), p. 1013, states: “ὁ Κύριος,=Hebr. Yahweh, LXX Ge. 11.5, al.” Also, the Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, by E. A. Sophocles, Cambridge, U.S.A., and Leipzig, 1914, p. 699, says under κύριος (Ky′ri·os): “Lord, the representative of הוהי. Sept. passim [scattered throughout].” Moreover, Dictionnaire de la Bible, by F. Vigouroux, Paris, 1926, col. 223, says that “the Septuagint and the Vulgate contain Κύριος and Dominus, ‘Lord,’ where the original contains Jehovah.” Regarding the divine name, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, edited by J. Payne Smith, Oxford, 1979 reprint, p. 298, says that Mar·ya’ “in the [Syriac] Peshita Version of the O. T. represents the Tetragrammaton.”

Jehovah’s name was first restored to the English Bible by William Tyndale. In 1530 he published a translation of the first five books of the Bible into English. He included Jehovah’s name once, in Ex 6:3. In a note in this edition Tyndale wrote: “Iehovah is God’s name . . . Moreover, as oft as thou seist LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing) it is in Hebrew Iehovah.” From this the practice arose among translators to use Jehovah’s name in just a few places, but to write “LORD” or “GOD” in most places where the Tetragrammaton occurs in Hebrew. This practice was adopted by the translators of the King James Version in 1611, where Jehovah’s name occurs only four times, namely, in Ex 6:3; Ps 83:18; Isa 12:2; 26:4.

Further, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Vol. 1, Chicago (1980), p. 13, says: “To avoid the risk of taking God’s name (YHWH) in vain, devout Jews began to substitute the word ’adōnā(y) for the proper name itself. Although the Masoretes left the four original consonants in the text, they added the vowels ē (in place of a for other reasons) and ā to remind the reader to pronounce ’adōnā(y) regardless of the consonants. This feature occurs more than six thousand times in the Hebrew Bible. Most translations use all capital letters to make the title ‘LORD.’ Exceptions are the ASV [American Standard Version] and New World Translation which use ‘Jehovah,’ Amplified [Bible] which uses ‘Lord,’ and JB [The Jerusalem Bible] which uses ‘Yahweh.’ . . . In those places where ’adōnā(y) yhwh occurs the latter word is pointed with the vowels from ’ēlōhim, and the English renderings such as ‘Lord GOD’ arose (e.g. Amos 7:1).”