Two Students Complete Studies

On December 13, 2009, two students, C. B. “Ben” Frock, Jr. and Robert Guthrie, received their certificates of completion. The significance of this is realized when considering that at the end of almost every semester since 1969, students have completed our program and have gone on to serve the Lord as preachers or in other capacities preparing souls to better serve the Lord. This would not be possible if it were not for the sacrificial support of local churches of Christ and individual Christians. Every time the South Florida Avenue congregation hosts a “graduation service,” it calls for a moment of reflection and thanksgiving, first to the Lord, and then to the South Florida Avenue church of Christ and all our contributors. Thanks for your support!

Brother Frock began preaching for the Manhattan Avenue church of Christ in Tampa shortly after his first year with the school. Before enrolling, he worked eighteen years in civil service as a Tampa Police Department crime scene technician and a Hillsborough County Water Department business analyst. In 2002, he became a certified internet development professional through CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association. He plans to continue preaching for the Manhattan congregation and growing in service to the Lord. He and his wife, Elisha, have one son, who was born while Ben was a student.

Brother Guthrie has been a member of the Kissimmee church of Christ for twenty-nine years. He has been a Bible class teacher for much of that time, and has served in the eldership for the last four years. He worked secularly for thirty-one years as a production mechanic before taking an early retirement in order to make attending school possible. His immediate plans are to continue working with the Kissimmee congregation, serving as an elder, and filling-in to preach as needed. He and his wife of thirty-four years, Debbie, have two adult

LORD, Jehovah, Yahweh, or What?

by Gene Burgett

The Old Testament was originally written, for the most part, in the Hebrew language. In Hebrew, the word translated “God” is from various forms of the word el. El, or its plural form elohim, is a general term for deity. El is used to refer to the God of the Bible and is also used with reference to false gods. For example, in Second Kings 1:3, the word elohim appears twice.

But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?’” (NKJ)

Notice that the same Hebrew word is used to refer to both the “God” of Israel and the “god” of Ekron.

One of the most common places readers of English translations can see the influence of the word el is in the names of many Bible characters. The last two letters of names like Israel, Ishmael, Daniel, and Ezekiel incorporate the Hebrew word for God (el).

The Need To Differentiate

Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words states the following in the entry to the word el.

This term was the most common general designation of deity in the ancient Near East. While it frequently occurred alone, el was also combined with other words to constitute a compound term for deity, or to identify the nature and functions of the “god” in some manner. Thus the expression “God, the God of Israel” (Gen. 33:20) identified the specific activities of Israel’s God. (96)

In a situation where only one choice of any given item exists, it is not necessary to identify an item by anything other than what the item actually is. For example, suppose the market for canned peas belongs to one supplier and anyone who buys canned peas must buy that brand because there is no other brand. The label need not say anything other than “peas.” However, suppose an enterprising individual decides to introduce a competing brand of peas. Since there are now competing concepts of canned peas, it becomes necessary for the labels to say something to distinguish one from the other. Peas are a generic name for a vegetable. “Green Giant,” however, differentiates one can of peas from a competing can of peas.

What do peas have to do with God? The Hebrew people lived in a world where many different concepts of deity were extant. Some believed Baal was god. Some believed Dagon was god. The truth is, most of the cultures among which the Hebrew people lived believed in the existence of many gods. In that kind of situation, the only way to differentiate one concept of deity from another was to assign a name to that deity. The God of the Hebrews revealed himself to them by a four-letter name, spelled YHWH (transliterated from Hebrew). Scholars often refer to YHWH as the tetragrammaton.

A word spelled YHWH probably looks weird to most people who read English because it has no vowels. Hebrew is a little strange in that it has no vowels, only consonants. Apparently, no vowels is not a problem as long as a language is in regular use, at least that is what people who speak and read Hebrew claim. However, should a language without vowels go into disuse, it is possible to forget how words are pronounced.

The second commandment forbids taking the name of God in vain (Ex. 20:7). Many believe that the Jews decided the best way to make sure God’s name was not taken in vain was to refuse pronouncing God’s name. In synagogue scripture readings, when the reader came to the word YHWH, he replaced it with the Hebrew word for Lord. This practice went on for hundreds of years, and after a while, no one really remembered how to pronounce the word YHWH.

Masorite Scribes

Somewhere between AD 500 and 950, a group of Jewish scholars called Masorites were commissioned to revise the Hebrew text. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Masoretic text was the basis for all translations of the Old Testament. Because our Hebrew translations are based on a text fifteen hundred years later than the oldest parts of the Old Testament, it is important for us to know that they went to great lengths to insure the purity of the text. In The Books and the Parchments, by F. F. Bruce, the author states that the Masorites,

[D]evised a complicated system of safeguards against scribal slips. They counted, for example, the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurs in each book; they pointed out the middle letter of the Pentateuch and the middle letter of the whole Hebrew Bible, and made even more detailed calculations than these. (117)

Part of their revision involved adding vowel points to the Hebrew text. When they came to the word YHWH (often spelled JHWH), they added the vowels from adonay, the Hebrew word for Lord. Thus, JHWH became JaHoWah (Jehovah). Before we are too hard on the Masorites, it should be noted that they had a good reason for doing what they did. The vowel points of the Hebrew word for Lord were added to the consonants for the name of God because while “the thing written” (called the kethib by the Hebrews) was YHWH, what was supposed to be read aloud in the synagogue was Lord (called the qere, an Aramaic term meaning “read”). Thus, retaining the tetragrammaton reflected fidelity to the Hebrew text, while adding the vowels of adonay indicated what should be read aloud in the synagogue.

Renaissance Perceptions

Now let us fast-forward hundreds of years after the work of the Masorites, when the Hebrew text was rediscovered. Renaissance period scholars studying the Hebrew text did not know about the work of the Masorites. When they came across the name of God, they did not realize they were looking at a hybrid word. They believed the vowels actually belonged with the consonants. Thus, they believed the name of God was to be pronounced “Jehovah.” It is often said that “old ideas die hard,” and this is one of them, as the mistaken pronunciation that originated in the Renaissance continues to this very day.

Most English translations have continued the tradition of the Jews and put the word LORD wherever the name YHWH appears in the Hebrew text (the KJV translates it “Jehovah” in four places, Ex. 6:3; Ps. 83:18; Isa. 12:2; 26:4). However, in order to let the Bible student know when the word Lord is being used in the place of YHWH they print the word “LORD” (with a capital “L” and small upper case “ORD”). Some translations translations, like the American Standard Version 1901, have opted to translate the tetragrammaton as “Jehovah” after the long accepted pronunciation begun in the Renaissance.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, ignorant that “Jehovah” was a pronunciation based on uninspired human premises, have even named themselves after the Renaissance mistake. The next time our friendly neighborhood Jehovah’s Witnesses come to our door, claiming they are superior to the rest of the religious world because they alone used the name of God, ask them if it is better to mispronounce God’s name or to simply recognize Him as LORD?

Conclusion

Scholars now understand that the Masorites created a hybrid word. It is now widely accepted that the word YHWH was pronounced Yahweh, and several translations (e.g. the Jerusalem Bible) have begun to use this term.
So, how do we answer the title of this article: LORD, Jehovah, Yahweh, or what? The answer seems to be “all the above” are appropriate.

Works Cited

• Vine, W. E. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words. Eds. Merrill F.Unger and William White, Jr. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1985.
• Bruce, F. F. The Books and the Parchments. 3rd rev. ed. Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1963.

Happy students and instructors on graduation night.

Front row: Tim Bolen, Gene Burgett, Derek Long.

Second row: Ben Frock, Steve Walling, Richard Meadows, Mike Winborn.

Back row: Brian Kenyon, Robert Guthrie.

Special thanks to the South Florida Avenue congregation for hosting this special event!