St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

In our "Questions to the clergy" slot, John will try to answer any query you throw at him, without hesitation, deviation or repetition...

Call God by his right name?

Q. Why don’t we call God by his name “Jehovah” as the bible teaches us to?

A. Three reasons. First, it isn’t actually his name. Second, the bible doesn’t teach us to. Third, we call him by a relationship name rather than a proper name.

The first bit is very complicated. Hebrew was originally written without vowels, and the reader was left to fill them in himself. Try it yourself with a sentence like “TH CT ST •N TH MT” or a song like “CM B Y, M LRD, CM B Y” and you’ll see how it is done. God’s personal name is given in Exodus 3:15 as YHWH, where it is explained as being linked to the Hebrew verb HWH which means “to be” - so God’s name means “The one who is”.

The Jews felt God’s name was too sacred to pronounce, and for that reason we’re not exactly sure what vowels should go with it, but most scholars guess “Yahweh”. When they read the scriptures aloud, the Jews used to substitute another word “Adonai” (which means “Lord”), and when the system of “pointing” was invented (which means inserting dots and lines to indicate the vowels) they put the vowels of this word against the consonants of YHWH to remind themselves to use the different word. So the name Jehovah (YaHoWaH) isn’t really a name at all - it’s a formula of letters designed to tell the Jews to say “Adonai” instead of the real name.

Very confusing! However, it doesn’t matter, because if it had been important to call God Jehovah, it is quite certain Jesus would have told us to do so. But he didn’t. He used the Aramaic word “Abba” - “Daddy” or “Father”, and he taught his followers to call God by this name too. You may hear people saying that the word “Lord” in the New Testament shows us that we should use the same word as the OT uses, but that’s completely wrong - if the NT writers had wanted us to call God by a particular name, they would have transliterated it as "Youfa" * or something similar, but they never did.

As you know, my name is John. Everyone calls me that, except my children: they call me “Dad”, because of our relationship. And that’s why the bible teaches us to call God “Father”. Actually, my autistic son Neil calls me “John Hartley” - I don’t take that as a sign of respect but as a sign that he hasn’t understood the way that language signifies relationship. We call God “Father” because we’re his children.

John Hartley

* In the original article I invented this word and wrote it in Greek, but I don't know how to get the Greek letters onto a web page, so I've just put a transliteration here.

	*St Luke's Church, Eccleshill - The Link* magazine** The Link is published monthly at 40p (Senior Citizens 35p), and we deliver free within the parish and post copies (at the reader's expense) to those who request it. Please contact us if you would like a free copy for a trial period. August 2009, Page 4.
Home Page. Index of articles: by subject, by date. In this issue: (August 2009) Swine Flu, Song, God's name? Sanctification? More bishops? Other questions.	In our "Questions to the clergy" slot, John will try to answer any query you throw at him, without hesitation, deviation or repetition... Call God by his right name? Q. Why don’t we call God by his name “Jehovah” as the bible teaches us to? A. Three reasons. First, it isn’t actually his name. Second, the bible doesn’t teach us to. Third, we call him by a relationship name rather than a proper name. The first bit is very complicated. Hebrew was originally written without vowels, and the reader was left to fill them in himself. Try it yourself with a sentence like “TH CT ST •N TH MT” or a song like “CM B Y, M LRD, CM B Y” and you’ll see how it is done. God’s personal name is given in Exodus 3:15 as YHWH, where it is explained as being linked to the Hebrew verb HWH which means “to be” - so God’s name means “The one who is”. The Jews felt God’s name was too sacred to pronounce, and for that reason we’re not exactly sure what vowels should go with it, but most scholars guess “Yahweh”. When they read the scriptures aloud, the Jews used to substitute another word “Adonai” (which means “Lord”), and when the system of “pointing” was invented (which means inserting dots and lines to indicate the vowels) they put the vowels of this word against the consonants of YHWH to remind themselves to use the different word. So the name Jehovah (YaHoWaH) isn’t really a name at all - it’s a formula of letters designed to tell the Jews to say “Adonai” instead of the real name. Very confusing! However, it doesn’t matter, because if it had been important to call God Jehovah, it is quite certain Jesus would have told us to do so. But he didn’t. He used the Aramaic word “Abba” - “Daddy” or “Father”, and he taught his followers to call God by this name too. You may hear people saying that the word “Lord” in the New Testament shows us that we should use the same word as the OT uses, but that’s completely wrong - if the NT writers had wanted us to call God by a particular name, they would have transliterated it as "Youfa" * or something similar, but they never did. As you know, my name is John. Everyone calls me that, except my children: they call me “Dad”, because of our relationship. And that’s why the bible teaches us to call God “Father”. Actually, my autistic son Neil calls me “John Hartley” - I don’t take that as a sign of respect but as a sign that he hasn’t understood the way that language signifies relationship. We call God “Father” because we’re his children. John Hartley * In the original article I invented this word and wrote it in Greek, but I don't know how to get the Greek letters onto a web page, so I've just put a transliteration here.
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