That's a thought. I think He gave Moses a name for the sake of Him having one for His followers. In the early part of Genesis He is called "God Most High" (Elohim, I think).
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Some questions about Christianity
- Thread starter Kikite
- Start date
That's a thought. I think He gave Moses a name for the sake of Him having one for His followers. In the early part of Genesis He is called "God Most High" (Elohim, I think).
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
how do you know that he didnt call God by his name?
When Jesus read from the hebrew scriptures, do you think he skipped over the Name when he came across it in his reading of the law?
And if he didnt use Gods name, why did he say "I have made your name known to them and will make it known" JOhn 17:26
When you introduce your parents to someone, do you say 'This is 'mum' and this is 'dad' or do you introduce them by their name so that the person you are introducing them knows their names?
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
and how privileged they must have felt when God revealed that name to them. They certainly held that name in very high esteem. And so did Jesus for he made its sanctification the first priority in the Lords Prayer. Before all other things, Gods name was to be hallowed.
It must be important.
The world is a very small place today... we live in communities full of various faiths and people with all sorts of gods. I think if it was important back then, its just as, if not more important today.
I think we should consider what the scriptures have to say on this. The most important thing to any christian (or anyone else for that matter) is that of their salvation. If we didnt care about salvation, we wouldnt strive to do the things required to obtain the salvation God offers, would we.
And yet, the scriptures tell us this:
Joel 2:32 And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, just as Jehovah has said, The survivors whom Jehovah calls.
Acts 2:21 And everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.
Romans 10:13 For everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved. 14 However, how will they call on him if they have not put faith in him? How, in turn, will they put faith in him about whom they have not heard?
What does this tell you about salvation?
This is conjecture to believe Jesus read the Jewish name of God when he read in the temple. Is it true God's name YHVH was already held in such high esteem at the time of Jesus that others might not have read it out loud? Why are there no words in the gospels about a controversy regarding his saying it?
People view gods every which way. Even the True God Jehovah is viewed as a destroyer. It would be fair for someone to call Jehovah The Destroyer God because that is what God did (destroyed nations to make way for a savior) and what God will do (remove obstacles for the making of the earth a paradise.)
False religion teaches God is about death in that death is the only way a person is able to know God.
Jesus told us what to call God. God is Love. Love defines all that the True God is; thus God's right name is LOVE. Jesus himself called God Abba! Father! It is the name Jesus expects us to call God.
Jesus taught The Father is the source of everything good. God is a Spirit. God is good. Now we have a righteous view of The True God. The righteous view of The One you call Jehovah is God's True Name.
No one can argue against the God Jesus showed us unless of course their argument is nonexistence. For years and years people are aguing for what God's name should be. God's name should be love. Argue that.
Why shouldn't God's Name be Abbafatherlovetheliivingspiritofgoodness?
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Jesus almost always called God "Father" and did not address Him by His first name. My kids call me "Mom" rather than "Kathryn" and I never called my mother by her first name. Our relationship was intensely close.
Sounds just a tad condescending coming from you, Pegg.
Hi, Kikite
First, it is good that you are conscience of the existence of a God of the universe.
Without that, you could not understand anything of what is... of God.
I have been a Christian from the earliest age possible, having faith in God. Though not understanding much except that which was taught me.
During my life's experiences, and now hitting 68 years of age, I have learned and understood much about this wonderful, loving, caring, compassionate God who exists to our benefit.
Sure....there are plenty of religions, religious beliefs in the world.
There is only one word that can unite all of them......that is if.....they practice it.
That is the God type of love.
God's creation of mankind as individual souls with intelligence did not come without a consequence to us.
The consequence of our creation was/is separation.
Because we are as god's, quote "the man is become as one of us", we naturally, by consequence of that become separated from God.
That was the first Adam's creation. Both physical and spiritual.
The second Type of Adam, but not as "the man is become as one of us", but rather As God in the flesh, is the spirit of God in the flesh.
The second Adam is our salvation from the penalty of our separation.
Demonstrated by God's love for all of us without discrimination.
Therefore, love is the word of God that trumps all religious beliefs.
If practiced, becomes our salvation....regardless of what religious belief one aspires to.
God looks at the heart (the inner man) not at the outer man.
Christians are of all degrees of understandings and are always on the learning curve.
Reading God's word, prayer in faith of God's response is the key in understanding Him.
Don't be confused with all the definitions of religious beliefs.
Have faith in God and He will lead you via His Holy Spirit to understanding and to practicing love.
Hope that helps?
Blessings, AJ
First, it is good that you are conscience of the existence of a God of the universe.
Without that, you could not understand anything of what is... of God.
I have been a Christian from the earliest age possible, having faith in God. Though not understanding much except that which was taught me.
During my life's experiences, and now hitting 68 years of age, I have learned and understood much about this wonderful, loving, caring, compassionate God who exists to our benefit.
Sure....there are plenty of religions, religious beliefs in the world.
There is only one word that can unite all of them......that is if.....they practice it.
That is the God type of love.
God's creation of mankind as individual souls with intelligence did not come without a consequence to us.
The consequence of our creation was/is separation.
Because we are as god's, quote "the man is become as one of us", we naturally, by consequence of that become separated from God.
That was the first Adam's creation. Both physical and spiritual.
The second Type of Adam, but not as "the man is become as one of us", but rather As God in the flesh, is the spirit of God in the flesh.
The second Adam is our salvation from the penalty of our separation.
Demonstrated by God's love for all of us without discrimination.
Therefore, love is the word of God that trumps all religious beliefs.
If practiced, becomes our salvation....regardless of what religious belief one aspires to.
God looks at the heart (the inner man) not at the outer man.
Christians are of all degrees of understandings and are always on the learning curve.
Reading God's word, prayer in faith of God's response is the key in understanding Him.
Don't be confused with all the definitions of religious beliefs.
Have faith in God and He will lead you via His Holy Spirit to understanding and to practicing love.
Hope that helps?
Blessings, AJ
The original texts here read "The Lord", not "Jehovah". So it should read "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord (Greek. Kyrios) shall be saved."
The NWT is very suspect in a lot of aspects. Their arbitrary insertion of Jehovah into the New Testament when there is no hard evidence for such a practice is one way.
What does this all tell me? It tells me that, according to you, I have no loving relationship with my parents if I don't call them by their first names. It tells me that, according to you, I am not a student of my martial arts instructor because I call him "Sir" or "Master (insert last name here)," rather than by His first name. It tells me that because I choose to call God "Lord" and "Master" and "God" out of respect and love for Him, you think I have no relationship with Him and am doomed to eternal death.
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Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
No, they dont. The original hebrew text has the tetragrammaton in the verse.
People have replaced the Name of God with the titles 'Lord' or 'God' even though they know it should be the Name of God.
Have you heard of the Jewish Tosefta writings? They are a collection of oral laws written around 300 CE. In those writings there are instructions on what to do with Christian writings when you find them. The books were to be burned in the fire 'along with the Divine name within them' ...there is also a reference of Rabbi Yose the Galilean who gave instructions to 'cut out the references to the Divine Name withinh are in them and store them away, and the rest burn"
So there is evidence that the christians were using the Divine name in their writings. And that would make sense considering Jesus said that he had made that name known to them.
I just trying to help you see that there is nothing wrong with using Gods name. Its not a boobytrap. And according the scriptures, we should know and use it.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
yes it does, sorry if it came across that way. I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, just trying to get to the reason why Gods name is not important to many people.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Pegg, I'm under no such impression. the reason why it's not usually transliterated literally is because we use descriptive terms , or 'Lord' etc. It doesn't change the meaning.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
I dont think i follow.
Gods name does have a meaning... the hebrew letters make a verb meaning 'he causes to become'
'lord' on the other hand has the different meaning, 'authority' or 'ownership'. They are very different, dont you think?
There are many lords on the earth... people with ownership and authority. It is not something peculiar to God alone which is why its not personal.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Nope, different sort of 'Lord, actually. I think the spelling might even be different. It is personal, as the 'God name is personal as well. So are all the descriptive names. I really feel that you just have some ideas that are more opinion than Scriptural. There's nothing 'odd' about the way Scripture refers to Deity or deities etc., it makes sense for context.
If you mean the 'translated' words, in newer Bibles, then I would agree, I would prefer the original names.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
Except, the NT was originally written in Greek, not in Hebrew. All quotations of the OT in the NT also come from the Greek Septuagint, and not from the Hebrew.
All this gives evidence for is that the OT in Galilee was in Hebrew and not Greek. At this point in time, there was still no standard NT.
Among the Jewish Christians in the Semitic regions who were able to understand Hebrew, at least. There is no evidence for this outside of Judea, and perhaps Syria.
And I'm trying to help you understand that there's nothing wrong with not using it.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
not all of it. Matthews Gospel was originally written in Hebrew according to ancient sources.
For example Jerome (of the fourth and fifth centuries C.E.) wrote that Matthew composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed.*.*.*. Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected. in Concerning Illustrious Men, chapter III,
The tofeta speaks of 'christian writings'. There is no way they would have been burning the Hebrew scriptures. The christian writings were the 4 gospels and the letters of the apostles. These were all complete and in circulation before the end of the first century.
If they weren't, how were they being collected up and burned? Obviously they were already well established.
The Name of God appears in its abbreviated form in the greek scriptures. Why would they use the abbreviated form at all if they did not know what it was?
does not using it help people come to know who God is?
Yet we Christians had books in our Old Testament that the Jews later came to reject, because they proved Christ's Messiahship. Plus, different churches had different lists of what they considered to be in the New Testament--for example, Antioch had 22 books in their New Testament, while Alexandria had 33. It would also take centuries before the Gospels (known to the first Christians as simply the "memoirs of the Apostles") would be considered as Scripture, and longer still before they were regarded on the same level as the Old Testament. The New Testament as we know it today did not exist in the minds of the first Christians.
Also, the Jews have been known to burn even the writings of the prophets when they don't like what they hear--remember when King Jehoiakim of Judah burned the scroll of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 36? The Jews would have had no problem burning works which supported the claims of who they thought was a false Messiah, and shutting these same works out of the final cut of their canon. This is why the Jews don't have the Books of the Maccabees, the Wisdom of Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Prayer of Manasseh, various parts of the Book of Daniel (such as the Song of the Three Youths, the story of Susanna, the story of Bel and the Dragon,) the Epistle of Jeremiah, or the books of Tobit, Judith or Baruch. This is why they began standardizing the Tanakh and getting rid of all the textual variants, because we were doing too good with proving Christ's Messiahship through the Septuagint and the Hebrew variations which gave rise to it.
They were circulating among local groups--you wouldn't find the epistle to the Corinthians in Smyrna, for example--but I wouldn't call them "established." Not even the Four Gospels were each spread out across the entire Christian world until much later.
They knew the abbreviated form. How to pronounce that abbreviated form is what was forgotten. The vowel notations in the Hebrew text that we have today were medieval inventions by the Masoretes to ensure that there was only one way the Hebrew Scriptures could be read--the least Christian way possible.
I don't think calling Him "Jehovah" necessarily helps a whole lot more--yes, we can explain the etymology of it as being "I Am Who I Am" or "I shall be Who I shall be", and further clarify this as meaning that God is causeless and wholly unbound, and that He alone is fully self-sufficient and complete. But we can explain this without using the medieval rendering "Jehovah". YHWH works just as well--or heck, just cut straight to the translation. The main point of Who God is isn't that His name is YHWH. It's that He is the Creator of all, the Lord and Judge of all, Lover of mankind, our Physician and our Fortress, our Rock and our Refuge, our Liberator and our Life, our Healer and our Helper, our Savior and our Sanctifier, our Redeemer and our Ruler. He is Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, One in essence and undivided. And I don't need to tell you that His name is YHWH to get any of that across.
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Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
If you were talking to a Hindu person, they would say Shiva is the creator of all things. If you were talking to a muslim, its Allah.
Do you see why we feel its important for us to uphold Gods name?
Allah is simply the Arabic name of God--or Jehovah as you would call Him. Arab Christians call God "Allah" as well, not just Muslims.
"The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" works just as well to distinguish God. As does "The God of Israel" and "the God of the Christians".