How dare you insult Alan the Easter Bunny!
yes, but if there was a practice (as there obviously was… a few chapters later is the golden calf incident, which should be familiar from a movie starring the ex-face of the NRA) of worshipping other “gods”, then the admonition “don’t worship other gods” needn’t imply that they actually exist. False gods can be worshipped too… anyone religious person will attest to that regarding certain other religions, and any atheist will attest to that regarding all religions.
No way. The guy in the White House is the president too.
Although when the Chimp got in there without being elected, many people started capitalizing the R-- pResident.
He already told you of at least one Christian group who does: the one he grew up with.
I shared the information about your religion because it seems very relevant, not as a personal attack. The very first question any witnessing JW has asked me is if I know the name of God, and that it’s Jevovah. You’ve named your very religion after it.
“Jehovah” doesn’t appear in the original Hebrew Bible, either. It’s only one of more than 700 ways that YHVH can be pronounced(the following shamelessly stolen from Lon Milo DuQuette’s* Chicken Qabalah*):
The Y can be prounounced Yah, Jah, Yay, Jay, Yeh, Jeh, Yee, Jee, Gee, Yigh, Jigh, Eye, You, Joe, You or Jew
Either H: Hah, Ah, Hay, Aay, Heh, Eh, Hee, EE, High, I, (Eye), Ho, Oh, Hoo, (Who) or Oo
The V: Vah., Wah, Vay, Way, Veh, Weh, Vee, We, Vigh, Why, Voe, Woe, Voo or Woo
Mix and match, and God gets a lot of names:
I’m not sure why the Jehovah’s Witnesses chose “Jehova” specifically, maybe you could tell us. But to a Biblical scholar or one who reads Hebrew, it’s no more or less God’s name than the farmer’s God, Joe Who Weigh Hay.
Then what do you care how it’s spelled?
Then we are at an impasse, since your upbringing was different from mine.
What a difference a sect makes.
In the churches and religious gatherings I attended from childhood to the age of majority, I don’t recall any prayers, lectures or sermons where references to the principal diety of belief was anything other than God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, or the combined Trinity. Prayers were said to God or Jesus (God the Father, God the Son), not usually the Holy Ghost. References to the King James Biblical names (Elohim, YHWH) were used in an historical sense only. The Christians I know don’t use the names of Elohim or Yahweh in ordinary prayers. YMMV.
In case you’re thinking that God is only one of many gods, that is not possible in a modern* montheistic religion. There are no other gods but the correct one.
*I’m aware that in times past, monotheistic religions sometimes worshiped only one god at a time, but conceded the existance of other gods for other people. When you visit your neighbors, you worship their god, but both groups can be characterized as monotheistic.
In the Hebrew text, the names adonai (our lord) and elohim (god) most certainly do appear. “Sovereign Lord” is an inexact translation of adonai YHVH, probably because YHVH is usually rendered as “LORD” and “our Lord LORD” would sound dumb.
What’s God’s real name, anyway? The one his mom gave him? The one on his driver’s license?
That’s Alana. It’s hard enough for a bunny to lay eggs without being a boy. 
Look, the name of the god worshipped by the ancient Israelites was spelled YHWH. That’s what they believed his name was. We don’t know exactly how it was pronounced, but it seems to me that if you believe that the ancient Isrealites had a direct connection to God, and God told them his name was YHWH, and you believe them, then you should believe that God’s name is YHWH.
That wasn’t (isn’t) quite his name. It’s more like (bot not quite) his initials. Notice the no vowel thing. It’s impossible to say as it is.
It’s like WKRP, if we tried to use it as a word. “Work rip?” “Why creep?” “Wok rape?” Who knows? So we write (and say) “Doubleyew kay are pee.” YHVH is often pronounced “Yud Hey Vowv Hey”: the names of the 4 letters which stand for God, but they’re not his whole name. In turn, each letter means a whole word on it’s own, as well as a number and a slew of other things. Hebrew, especially Biblical Hebrew, is mind bogglingly complex, and a good way to drive yourself bonkers. The reason they consider YHVH closer to the actual name of God than God or G-d or Elohim is because of all those other meanings of the letters that say important stuff about who God is.
And when you write it vertically in Hebrew, it looks like a little person. I find that really cool.
what are you talking about? it most certainly was pronounced, hence the prohibition against pronouncing it. NO word in the bible had vowels until later masoretes codified pronunciation- the same ones who codified the musical notes that go with verses.
the name YHWH probably comes from the root of the verb “to exist”.
and hebrew isn’t all that complicated. Biblical hebrew is only slightly harder. you can find good works on biblical grammar–
Wilhelm Gesenius - Wikipedia gesenius wrote the most authoritative, i think.
Here you go, this guy says it far better than I can. (Link to Google Books preview of The Chicken Qabalah, a humorous and also intellectually respectable book on Qabalah. The link should go to page 71, the beginning of the chapter called “The True Pronunciation of the Ineffable Name of God.” If not, Searching within the book for those words will bring it up.)
By “complicated” I don’t mean difficult to learn, but rather very comprehensive, in that each letter has a word, number, and has gathered a slew of associations like planets, astrological signs, tarot cards, paths on the Tree of Life, etc. that it’s gathered over the years in various circles. I was once told by the author of this book, “The Hebrew alphabet is the tool you use to connect everything in the universe with everything else, until the only two things left to connect are you and God.” Chapter 4 covers the introduction to the Hebrew alphabet for the modern esotericist, if you’re bored. Interested, I mean! Interested. 
They do not appear that way in the original texts.
Elohim, Adonai, Kyrios and Theos were substitutes for the Tetrgammaton.
I agree with I think…
The challenge of determining the correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is going to be imprecise under any circumstance. But that is going to be the same with figuring put the correct pronunciation with names like the name we call “Jesus”, “Isaiah.”
My point is/was that no Christian group I’m aware of actually believes God’s name is “God.”
They may not know how to pronounce it.
They may disagree on the correct [English} rendering.
They may choose to not use it, for a variety of reasons.
It may not appear correctly in their translations.
But they surely don’t believe his name is “God.”
I have no quarrel with any of this.
However, the fact that your denomination and/or preacher/pastor chose not to use the name “Yahweh”, or “Jehovah” doesn’t mean the Pastor actually believed God’s name was/is “God.”
It is common for many Christian groups to not use God’s name at all, ever. Many, many others use it infrequently, or in limited contexts.
In any event, there is difference between choosing to not use God’s name, and actually believing God’s name is actually “God.”
Like Me?
Wow!
It certainly isn’t clear that the Christian group “he grew up with” actually believes God’s name is “God” (especially given his subsequent posts), but rather, he ‘didn’t recall hearing it.’
At any rate, I’d be really hard pressed to believe that his pastor/denomination believed God’s name is/was “God.”
I can certainly believe that they didn’t use it. I’d surely believe most didn’t know it. But that is a far cry from believing God’s name is “God.”
In the Kabbalah, the Tetragrammaton YHVH is interpreted as an anagram of יהיה yihyeh - הווה hoveh - היה hayah ‘he will be - he is - he was’. Those old Kabbalists sure had their way with… letters. I find it curious however that this instance of kabbalization runs time backwards…? This would also explain how the Tetragrammaton came to be pronounced yi-hov-ah or “Jehovah”… like it’s made from those anagrammed letters in the tenses of the verb ‘to be’.
I was… I am… I am to come!
you are mistaken. Elohim and Adonai are both hebrew names for, or at least references to, God. They were in the original texts… in fact, YHWH does not appear at all in Genesis 1, Elohim takes its place.
Kyrios and Theos are obviously not Hebrew, so they were not.
as for all the lovely mysticism all over this page-- it is a fundamental misunderstanding of mystical interpretation, to impose it on the “p’shat” (simple reading) of a text, phrase, word, etc. the name YHWH, whatever kabbalists or sages have made of it, is not a set of initials, or a vertical person. It does bear a relationship to “Was, am, will be”, because it shares a root with those verbs. Later homiletics, be they mystical-kabbalistic or not, have no bearing on the fact that the name WAS pronounced (even if we lack a tradition as to what this pronunciation was), and was not, originally, viewed the way later kabbalists and their followers viewed it.
also, I suggest that anyone interested in Qabbala, for whatever reason, read “Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism” by Gerschom Scholem, the truly authoritative scholarly text on the historical evolution of qabbala and its key concepts. afterwards, you’ll actually have a foundation on which to build an evalutation of any other book you come across on the matter-- because a lot of utter crap has been written.
the work u quoted was written by “lamed ben clifford”, whose real name i forget. He is an occultist who studies the works of Aleister Crowley and his likes. You will not learn anything about Jewish qabbala from him. you may, if ur lucky, learn what weirdos in the 20th century think about magic, spirits, and the value of secret societies.
Cite this, please.