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Jehovah (Template:Pron-en) is a proper name of the biblical God. It is a transliteration of the Hebrew term יְהֹוָה, a vocalization of the sacred Tetragrammaton (יהוה), which according to the Bible was revealed by God to his people. It is found 6,518 times in the traditional Masoretic Text, as opposed to the 305 times in which the term "Jehovih" (יֱהֹוִה) appears. The earliest available Latin text that uses this vocalization dates from the 13th century.

Pronunciation

The "Jehovah" form of the Tetragrammaton is said to be testified by Semitic and Greek phonetic texts and artifacts of the early Christian era. Others say that it is the pronunciation "Yahweh" that is testified in both Christian and pagan texts of the early Christian era.

Some proponents of the rendering "Jehovah", including Karaite Jews, state that although the original pronunciation of יהוה has been lost, well-established English renderings of other Hebrew personal names are accepted in normal usage, such as Joshua, Isaiah or Jesus, for which the original pronunciations may be unknown.

According to a Jewish tradition developed during the third to second centuries BC, the Tetragrammaton is written but not pronounced. When read, substitute terms replace the divine name where יְהֹוָה appears in the text. It is widely assumed, as proposed by the 19th-century Hebrew scholar Gesenius, that the vowels of the substitutes of the name (like "Lord" and "Name") were meant by the Masoretes to be inserted aiming to avoid the true vocalisation of God's name. When יהוה precedes or follows the word Adonai, the Masoretes placed the precise vowel points of Elohim into the Tetragrammaton, producing a different vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יֱהֹוִה which the Hebrew reader read as Elohim. In accordance with this reasoning, the form יְהֹוָה (Jehovah) has been characterised as "hybrid form", and even "a philological impossibility".

Early modern translators disregarded the practice of reading Adonai (or its equivalents in Greek and Latin) in place of the tetragrammaton and instead combined the four Hebrew letters of the text with the vowel points that, except in synagogue scrolls, accompanied them, resulting in the form "Jehovah". This form achieved wide use in the translations of the Protestant Reformation, though it was already in use by Roman Catholic authors. In the 1611 King James Version, "Jehovah" occurred seven times. In the 1901 American Standard Version, it was still the regular English rendition of יהוה, in preference to "the LORD". It is also used in Christian hymns such as the 1771 hymn, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah".

Development

The most widespread theory is that the Hebrew term יְהֹוָה has the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי (adonai). Using the vowels of adonai, the composite hataf patah ֲ under the guttural alef א becomes a sheva ְ under the yod י, the holam ֹ is placed over the first he ה, and the qamats ָ is placed under the vav ו, giving יְהֹוָה ("Jehovah"). When the two names, יהוה and אדני, occur together, the former is pointed with a hataf segol ֱ under the yod י and a hiriq ִ under the second he ה, giving יֱהֹוִה, to indicate that it is to be read as ("elohim") in order to avoid adonai being repeated.

The pronunciation Jehovah is believed to have arisen through the introduction of vowels of the qere – the marginal notation used by the Masorites. In places where the consonants of the text to be read (the qere) differed from the consonants of the written text (the kethib), they wrote the qere in the margin to indicate the desired reading. In such cases, the kethib was read using the vowels of the qere. For a few very frequent words the marginal note was omitted, referred to as q're perpetuum. One of these frequent cases was God's name, which was not to be pronounced in fear of profaning the "ineffable name". Instead, wherever יהוה (YHWH) appears in the kethib of the biblical and liturgical books, it was to be read as אֲדֹנָי (adonai, "My Lord "), or as אֱלֹהִים (elohim, "God") if adonai appears next to it. This combination produces יְהֹוָה ("yehovah") and יֱהֹוִה ("yehovih") respectively. יהוה is also written ’ה, or even ’ד, and read ha-Shem ("the name").

Scholars are not in total agreement as to why יְהֹוָה does not have precisely the same vowel points as adonai. The use of the composite hataf segol ֱ in cases where the name is to be read, "elohim", has led to the opinion that the composite hataf patah ֲ ought to have been used to indicate the reading, "adonai". It has been argued conversely that the disuse of the patah is consistent with the Babylonian system, in which the composite is uncommon.

Vowel points of יְהֹוָה and אֲדֹנָי

The table below shows the vowel points of Yehovah and Adonay, indicating the simple sheva in Yehovah in contrast to the hataf patah in Adonay. As indicated to the right, the vowel points used when YHWH is intended to be pronounced as Adonai are slightly different to those used in Adonai itself.

The difference between the vowel points of ’ǎdônây and YHWH is explained by the rules of Hebrew morphology and phonetics. Sheva and hataf-patah were allophones of the same phoneme used in different situations: hataf-patah on glottal consonants including aleph (such as the first letter in Adonai), and simple sheva on other consonants (such as the 'y' in YHWH).

Introduction into English

According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, the pronunciation "Jehovah" was unknown until 1520 when it was introduced by Galatinus, who defended its use. However, this deduction has been revised, as the term "Jehovah" can be traced back at least to the Pugio fidei of Raymund Martin, written in about 1270.

In English it appeared in William Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch ("The Five Books of Moses"), published in 1530 in Germany, where Tyndale had studied since 1524, possibly in one or more of the universities at Wittenberg, Worms and Marburg, where Hebrew was taught. The spelling used by Tyndale was "Iehouah"; at that time, I was not distinguished from J and U was not distinguished from V. The original 1611 printing of the Authorized King James Version used "Iehovah". Tyndale wrote about the divine name: "IEHOUAH , is God's name; neither is any creature so called; and it is as much to say as, One that is of himself, and dependeth of nothing. Moreover, as oft as thou seest LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing), it is in Hebrew Iehouah, Thou that art; or, He that is."

The name "Jehovah" appeared in all early Protestant Bibles in English, except Coverdale's translation in 1535. The Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible used "the Lord", corresponding to the Latin Vulgate's use of "Dominus" (Latin for "Adonai", "Lord") to represent the tetragrammaton. The Authorized King James Bible also, which used "Jehovah" in a few places, most frequently gave "the LORD" as the equivalent of the tetragammaton. The name "Jehovah" appeared in John Rogers' Matthew Bible in 1537, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva Bible of 1560, Bishop's Bible of 1568 and the King James Version of 1611. More recently, it was used in the Revised Version of 1885, the American Standard Version in 1901, and the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures of the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1961.

At Exodus 6:3–6, where the King James Version has "Jehovah", the Revised Standard Version (1952), the New American Standard Bible (1971), the New International Version (1978), the New King James Version (1982), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), the New Century Version (1991), and the Contemporary English Version (1995) give "LORD" or "Lord" as their rendering of the tetragrammaton, while the New Jerusalem Bible (1985), the Amplified Bible (1987), the New Living Translation (1996, revised 2007), the English Standard Version (2001), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004) give the form "Yahweh".

Hebrew vowel points

Modern grammars of biblical Hebrew, such as Duane A Garrett's A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew agree that the Hebrew vowel points now found in printed Hebrew Bibles were invented in the second half of the first millennium AD, long after the texts were written down. This is indicated in the authoritative Hebrew Grammar of Gesenius, and in encyclopedias such as the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia, and is acknowledged even by those who claim that the grammars are perpetuating "scholarly myths".

Jehovist scholars, who believe יְהֹוָה Ye-HO-VaH (in Hebrew) transliterated Je-HO'-VaH (in English) to be the original pronunciation of the divine name, argue that the Hebraic vowel-points and accents were known to writers of the scriptures in antiquity. Some members of Karaite Judaism, such as Nehemia Gordon,hold this view. The antiquity of the vowel points and of the rendering "Jehovah" was defended by various scholars, including Michaelis, Drach, Stier, William Fulke (1583), Johannes Buxtorf, his son Johannes Buxtorf II, and John Owen (17th century); Peter Whitfield and John Gill (18th century); John Moncrieff (19th century); and more recently by Thomas D. Ross, G. A. Riplinger, John Hinton, and Thomas M. Strouse (21st century).

Jehovist writers such as Nehemia Gordon acknowledge that there is general agreement among scholars that the original pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was "Yahweh", and that the vowel points now attached to the tetragrammaton were added to indicate that "Adonai" was to be read instead, as seen in the alteration of those points after prefixes. Gordon goes on to show the vowel points of "Adonai" are not correct and argued for the prounciation "Ye-Ho-VAH" (stress on the last syllable), he wrote: "There is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name" and "this is presented as fact in every introduction to Biblical Hebrew and every scholarly discussion of the name".

Proponents of pre-Christian origin

Eighteenth-century theologian John Gill in his writing, A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents, argued for an extreme antiquity of their use, rejecting the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masorites. Gill presented writings, including passages of Scripture, that he interpreted as supportive of his Jehovist viewpoint that the Hebrew Scriptures could not be without the vowel-points and accents. He claimed that the use of Hebrew vowel points, and therefore of the name Jehovah (Ye-HO'-VaH), is documented from before 200 B.C., and even back to Adam by citing Jewish tradition that Hebrew was the original language of the world. He argued that throughout this history the Masorites did not invent the vowel points and accents, but that they were delivered to Moses by God at Sinai, citingKaraite authorities Mordechai ben Nisan Kukizov (1699) and his associates, who stated that "all our wise men with one mouth affirm and profess that the whole law was pointed and accented, as it came out of the hands of Moses, the man of God," The argument between the Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism on whether it was lawful to pronounce the name represented by the tetragrammaton is claimed to show that some copies have always been pointed (voweled) and some copies were not pointed with the vowels because of "oral law", for control of interpretation by some Judeo sects, including non-pointed copies in Synagogues. Gill claimed that the pronunciation "Jehovah" can be traced back to early historical sources which indicate that vowel points and/or accents were used in their time. Sources Gill claimed supported his view include:

• The Book of Cosri and commentator Rabbi Judab Muscatus, which claim that the vowel points were taught to Adam by God.
• Saadiah Gaon (927 AD)
• Jerome (380 AD)
• Origen (250 AD)
• The Zohar (120 AD)
• Jesus Christ (31 AD), based on Gill's interpretation of Matthew 5:18
• Hillel the Elder and Shammai division (30 BC)
• Karaites(120 BC)
• Demetrius Phalereus, librarian for Ptolemy II Philadelphus king of Egypt (277 BC)

Gill quoted Elia Levita, who said, "There is no syllable without a point, and there is no word without an accent", as showing that the vowel points and the accents found in printed Hebrew Bibles have a dependence on each other, and so Gill attributed the same antiquity to the accents as to the vowel points, while also acknowledging that Elia Levita, "who first asserted the vowel points were invented by "the men of Tiberias"; yet (Levita) declared,"if anyone could convince him that his opinion was contrary to the book of Zohar, he should be content to have it rejected." Gill goes on to show Elia Levita's opinion was contrary to the book of Zohar, which was declared by rabbis as older than the Masoretes, as it attests to the vowel-points and accents, and even names them in various places.

William Fulke, John Gill and others hold that Jesus Christ referred to a Hebrew vowel point or accent at Matthew 5:18, indicated in the King James Version by the word tittle. He argued that the words of this verse, spoken in Hebrew, but then transliterated into Greek of the New testament, are proof that these marks were applied to the Torah at that time.

Even John Lightfoot, the very liberal Hebrew Scholar, claimed the Hebrew vowel points were of the Holy Spirits invention, not the Tiberians.

Peter Whitfield's, A Dissertation on the Hebrew Vowel-Points. Shewing that they are an Original and Essential Part of the Language, (Liverpoole: Peter Whitfield, 1748), 288 pp. Whitfield examined the positions of Levita and Capellus, giving many biblical examples to refute their notion of the novelty of vowel points. In his introduction, he claimed that the Roman Catholic Church favored Levita's position because it allowed the priests to have the final say in interpretation. The lack of authoritative vowel points in the Hebrew Old Testament, he said, leaves the meaning of many words to the interpreter.

The 1602 Spanish Bible (Reina-Valera/Cipriano de Valera) uses the name Iehova and gave a lengthy defense of the pronunciation Jehovah in its preface.

Thomas D. Ross lays out the "Battle" and it's consequences in,"The Battle Over The Hebrew Vowel Points"

Proponents of later origin

Despite Jehovist claims that vowel signs are necessary for reading and understanding Hebrew, modern Hebrew is written without vowel points. The Torah scrolls do not include vowel points, and ancient Hebrew was written without vowel signs.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1946 and dated from 400 BC to 70 AD, include texts from the Torah or Pentateuch and from other parts of the Hebrew Bible and have provided actual documentary evidence that, in spite of the above claims to the contrary, Hebrew was in fact then written without vowel points. In fact, according to Menahem Mansoor's The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide, the vowel points found in printed Hebrew Bibles were devised in the ninth and tenth centuries AD. This gives the Hebrew vowel points an antiquity of over a thousand years, but is far from bringing them to the pre-Christian period, still less to that of Moses or Adam.

Gill's view that the Hebrew vowel points were in use at the time of Ezra or even at the origins of the Hebrew language went against the consensus that existed even at that time, and which presented the following grounds for rejecting his theory:

• The argument that vowel points are necessary for learning to read Hebrew is refuted by the fact that the Samaritan text of the Bible is read without them and that several other Semitic languages, kindred to Hebrew, are written without any indications of the vowels.
• The books used in synagogue worship have always been without vowel points, which, unlike the letters, have thus never been treated as sacred.
• The Qere Kethib marginal notes give variant readings only of the letters, never of the points, an indication either that these were added later or that, if they already existed, they were seen as not so important.
• The Kabbalists drew their mysteries only from the letters and completely disregarded the points, if there were any.
• In several cases, ancient translations from the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint, Targum, Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus, Theodotion, Jerome) read the letters with vowels different from those indicated by the points, an indication that the texts from which they were translating were without points. The same holds for Origen's transliteration of the Hebrew text into Greek letters. Jerome expressly speaks of a word in Habakkuk 3:5, which in the present Masoretic Text has three consonant letters and two vowel points, as being of three letters and no vowel whatever.
• Neither the Jerusalem Talmud nor the Babylonian Talmud (in all their recounting of Rabbinical disputes about the meaning of words), nor Philo nor Josephus, nor any Christian writer for several centuries after Christ make any reference to vowel points.

Early modern arguments

In the sixteen and seventeenth centuries, various arguments were presented supporting and opposing the transcription of the form Jehovah. They are summarized here:

William Robertson Smith, in his A Dictionary of the Bible (1863) summarizes the results of these discourses, and concludes that "whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not Jehovah". Despite this, he consistently uses the name Jehovah throughout his dictionary and when translating Hebrew names. Some examples include Isaiah , Jehoshua , Jehu . In the entry, Jehovah, Smith writes: "JEHOVAH ( יְהֹוָה, usually with the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי ; but when the two occur together, the former is pointed יֱהֹוִה, that is with the vowels of אֱלֹהִים, as in Obad. i. 1, Hab. iii. 19:" This practice is also followed by many modern publications, such as the New Compact Bible Dictionary (Special Crusade Edition) of 1967 sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Peloubet's Bible Dictionary of 1947.

Usage in English

The following works render the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah, either exclusively or occasionally:

• William Tyndale, in his 1530 translation of the first five books of the English Bible, at Exodus 6:3 renders the divine name as "Iehovah". In his note to this edition he wrote: "Iehovah is God's name... Moreover, as oft as thou seeist LORD in great letters (except there be any error in the printing) it is in Hebrew Iehovah."
• The King James (Authorized) Version, 1611: four times as the personal name of God (in all capital letters): Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; Isaiah 26:4; and three times in place names: Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; and Judges 6:24.
• Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible by J.N. Young, 1862, 1898 renders the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" 6,831 times.
• A literal translation of the Old Testament (1890) and the New Testament (1884), by John Nelson Darby, renders the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" 6,810 times in the main text.
• The American Standard Version, 1901 edition, renders the Tetragrammaton as "Je-ho’vah" in all 6,823 places where it occurs in the Old Testament.
• The Modern Reader's Bible, 1914, by Richard Moulton, uses "Jehovah" at Ps.83:18; Ex.6:2-9; Ex.22:14; Ps.68:4; Jerm.16:20; Isa.12:2 & Isa. 26:4
• The New English Bible, published by Oxford University Press, 1970; e.g. Gen 22:14; Exodus 3:15,16; 6:3; 17:15; Judges 6:24
• The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (1985) by Jay P. Green, Sr., renders the Tetragrammaton as "Jehovah" 6,866 times.
• The Living Bible, published by Tyndale House Publishers, Illinois 1971; e.g. Gen 22:14, Exodus 3:15; 4:1-27; 17:15; Lev 19:1-36; Deut 4: 29, 39; 5:5, 6; Judges 6:16, 24; Ps 83:18; 110:1; Isaiah 45:1, 18; Amos 5:8; 6:8; 9:6
• The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1961 and revised 1984: "Jehovah" appears 7,210 times, i.e. 6,973 in the Old Testament and 237 times in the New Testament.
• In the Emphatic Diaglott (1864), a translation of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, the name "Jehovah" appears 18 times.

The Bible in Today's English (Good News Bible), published by the American Bible Society, 1976, uses "The Lord" in its translation, stating in its preface, "the distinctive Hebrew name for God (usually transliterated Jehovah or Yahweh) is in this translation represented by 'The Lord'." A footnote to Exodus 3:14 states, "Yahweh, traditionally transliterated as Jehovah." Recent translations into English use "Yahweh", not "Jehovah".

Following the Middle Ages, many Catholic churches and public buildings across Europe were decorated with the name, "Jehovah". For example, the Coat of Arms of Plymouth (UK) City Council bears the Latin inscription, "Turris fortissima est nomen Jehova", derived from Proverbs 18:10.

Jehovah has been a popular English word for the personal name of God for several centuries. For this reason, some religious groups, notably Jehovah's Witnesses and the King-James-Only movement, make prominent use of the name.

Greek and Latin sources

Under the heading "יהוה c. 6823", the editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon write that יְהֹוָה occurs 6,518 times in the Masoretic Text and that it is read as "Adonai" or "Elohim".

Greek transcriptions similar to "Jehovah"

• Ιουώ (Iouō): Pistis Sophia (2nd cent.)
• Ιεού (Ieou): Pistis Sophia (2nd cent.)
• Ιεηωουά (Ie-ee-ōoua): Pistis Sophia (2nd cent.)
• Ιευώ (Ievō): Eusebius (c. 315)
• Ιεωά (Ieōa): Hellenistic magical texts (2nd-3rd centuries), M. Kyriakakes (2000)
• Ιεχοβά (like Jehova): Paolo Medici (1755)
• Ιεοβά (like Jeova): Greek Pentateuch (1833), Holy Bible translated in modern Greek by Neophytus Vamvas (1850)
• Ιεχωβά (like Jehova): Panagiotes Trempelas (1958)

Latin and English transcriptions similar to "Jehovah"

Transcriptions of יְהֹוָה similar to Jehovah occurred as early as the 12th century.

• Ieve: Petrus Alphonsi (c. 1106), Alexander Geddes (1800)
• Jehova: Raymond Martin (Raymundus Martini) (1278), Porchetus de Salvaticis (1303), Tremellius (1575), Marcus Marinus (1593), Charles IX of Sweden (1606), Rosenmüller (1820), Wilhelm Gesenius (c. 1830)
• Yohoua: Raymond Martin (1278)
• Yohouah: Porchetus de Salvaticis (1303)
• Ieoa: Nicholas of Cusa (1428)
• Iehoua: Nicholas of Cusa (1428), Peter Galatin (Galatinus) (1516)
• Iehova: Nicholas of Cusa (1428), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1514), Sebastian Münster (1526), Leo Judae (1543), Robert Estienne (1557)
• Ihehoua: Nicholas of Cusa (1428)
• Jova: 16th century, Rosenmüller (1820)
• Jehovah: Paulus Fagius (1546), Calvin (1557), King James Bible (1671 / 1669 ), Matthew Poole (1676), Benjamin Kennicott (1753), Alexander Geddes (1800)
• Iehouáh: Geneva Bible (1560)
• Iehovah: King James Version (1611), Henry Ainsworth (1627)
• Jovae: Rosenmüller (1820)
• Yehovah: William Baillie (1843)

See also

• Adon
• Allah
• Ea
• El
• Ellil
• Elohim
• God
• God in the Bahá'í Faith, God in Christianity, God in Islam, God in Judaism
• Gott
• I am that I am
• Jah
• Jehovah's Witnesses
• Names of God
• Names of God in Judaism
• Tetragrammaton (YHWH)
• Theophoric names:

• Jehoshaphat, Jehonadab, Tobijah
• Jeho*,,

• Yahweh
• Yam (Ya'a, Yaw)

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

References

1. Most scholars consider יְהֹוָה to be "a hybrid form" combining the consonants of the Tetragrammaton with the vowels of "Adonai" (Roy Kotansky, Jeffrey Spier, "The 'Horned Hunter' on a Lost Gnostic Gem", The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), p. 318) as "Gormuna" combines the consonants of "Germany" with the vowels of "Portugal" (Is His Name Jehovah or Yahweh?). The Jewish Encyclopedia calls the supposed Hebrew term יְהֹוָה "a philological impossibility" (Jewish Encyclopedia, YHWH).
2. Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon
3. Source: The Divine Name in Norway,
4. ^ "Although most scholars believe "Jehovah" to be a late (ca. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai (the traditionally pronounced version of יהוה), many magical texts in Semitic and Greek establish an early pronunciation of the divine name as both Yehovah and Yahweh" (Roy Kotansky, Jeffrey Spier, "The 'Horned Hunter' on a Lost Gnostic Gem", The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), p. 318.)
5. "This is the correct pronunciation of the tetragramaton, as is clear from the pronunciation of proper names in the First Testament (FT), poetry, fifth-century Aramaic documents, Greek translations of the name in the Dead Sea Scrolls and church fathers." (George Wesley Buchanan, "The Tower of Siloam", The Expository Times 2003; 115: 37; pp. 40, 41)
6. Jarl Fossum and Brian Glazer in their article Seth in the Magical Texts (in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphie 100 (1994), p. 86-92, reproduced here, give the name "Yahweh" as the source of a number of names found in pagan magical texts: Ἰάβας (p. 88), Iaō (described as "a Greek form of the name of the Biblical God, Yahweh", on p. 89), Iaba, Iaē, Iaēo, Iaō, Iaēō (p. 89). On page 92, they call "Iaō" "the divine name".
7. Greek Magical Papyri Texts, Marvin W. Meyer, The "Mithras" Liturgy. In the Introduction he says that the magical formula "IAO" seems derived from or imitative of the Semitic word "Yahweh". The same explanation of the word "Iao" in pagan magical texts is given by Franz Cumont (quoted in David Livingstone, The Hidden History of Western Civilization, p. 178. And Kristin De Troyer, in The Names of God, Their Pronunciation and Their Translation states that "IAO can be seen as a transliteration of YAHU, the three-letter form of the Name of God" (p. 6).
8. Stephen Flowers Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Magical Papyrus of Abaris (1995), p. 95
9. Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible (2000), p. 1402
10. http://karaite-korner.org/yhwh_2.pdf
11. "יְהֹוָה Jehovah, pr name of the supreme God amongst the Hebrews. The later Hebrews, for some centuries before the time of Christ, either misled by a false interpretation of certain laws (Ex. 20:7; Lev. 24:11), or else following some old superstition, regarded this name as so very holy, that it might not even be pronounced (see Philo, Vit. Mosis t.iii. p.519, 529). Whenever, therefore, this nomen tetragrammaton occurred in the sacred text, they were accustomed to substitute for it אֲדֹנָי, and thus the vowels of the noun אֲדֹנָי are in the Masoretic text placed under the four letters יהוה, but with this difference, that the initial Yod receives a simple and not a compound Sh’va (יְהֹוָה , not (יֲהֹוָה ); prefixes, however, receive the same points as if they were followed by אֲדֹנָי This custom was already in vogue in the days of the LXX. translators; and thus it is that they every where translated יְהֹוָה by ὁ Κύριος (אֲדֹנָי)." (H. W. F. Gesenius, Gesenius's Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1979), p. 337)
12. For example, Deuteronomy 3:24, Deuteronomy 9:26 (second instance), Judges 16:28 (second instance), Genesis 15:2
13. R. Laird Harris, "The Pronunciation of the Tetragram," in John H. Skilton (ed.), The Law and the Prophets: Old Testament Studies Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), 224.
14. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia: article YHWH
15. 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: article Jehovah (Yahweh)
16. In the 7th paragraph of "Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible", Sir Godfrey Driver wrote, "The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles." By comparison, the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome renders the name as Adonai at Exodus 6:3
17. At Gen.22:14; Ex.6:3; 17:15; Jg.6:24; Ps.83:18, Is.12:2; 26:4. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Iowa Falls: Word, 1994), 722.
18. According to the preface, this was because the translators felt that the "Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament".
19. The original hymn, without "Jehovah", was composed in Welsh in 1745; the English translation, with "Jehovah", was composed in 1771 (Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah).
20. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906
21. Jewish Encyclopedia: article Jehovah
22. Catholic Encyclopedia, article Jehovah (Yahweh)
23. Only three copies of his Five Books of Moses survive, and the best copy is kept at the British Museum.
24. Westcott, in his survey of the English Bible, wrote that Tyndale "felt by a happy instinct the potential affinity between Hebrew and English idioms, and enriched our language and thought for ever with the characteristics of the Semitic mind." See Dahlia M. Karpman's, "Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition" (Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 14 (1967)), pp. 113, 118, 119.
25. The first English-language book to make a clear distinction between I and J was published in 1634. (Richard M. Hogg, The Cambridge History of the English Language (Cambridge University Press 1992 ISBN=0521264766, p. 39). It was also only by the mid-1500s that V was used to represent the consonant and U the vowel sound, while capital U was not accepted as a distinct letter until many years later (Laurent Pflughaupt, Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany (Princeton Architectural Press ISBN 9781568987378) pp. 123–124).
26. William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, ed. Rev. Henry Walter (Cambridge, 1848), p. 408.
27. In the 7th paragraph of Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible, Sir Godfry Driver wrote, "The early translators generally substituted 'Lord' for . The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in 1530 A.D., in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6.3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles."
28. Exodus 6:3-5 RSV
29. Duane A. Garrett, A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew (Broadman & Holman 2002 ISBN 0-8054-2159-9), p. 13
30. Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition), p. 38
31. Jewish Encyclopedia, article Punctuation
32. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, article Hebrew
33. Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia, Third Edition (Llewellyn 1994), p. xviii
34. Thomas M. Strouse, Scholarly Myths Perpetuated on Rejecting the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament. The writer mentions in particular Christo H. J. Van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naude and Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Reference Grammar (Sheffield, England:Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), and Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publ. House, 2001)
35. Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name
36. (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 416)Online
37. (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 416)Online
38. (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 416)Online
39. Tiberias, sive Commentarius Masoreticus (1620; quarto edition, improved and enlarged by J. Buxtorf the younger, 1665)
40. Tractatus de punctorum origine, antiquitate, et authoritate, oppositus Arcano puntationis revelato Ludovici Cappelli (1648)
41. Biblical Theology (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1996 reprint of the 1661 edition), pp. 495-533
42. A Dissertation on the Hebrew Vowel-Points. Shewing that they are an Original and Essential Part of the Language, (Liverpoole: Peter Whitfield, 1748)
43. A Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, LETTERS, VOWEL POINTS, and ACCENTS (London: n. p., 1767)
44. An Essay on the Antiquity and Utility of the Hebrew Vowel-Points (Glasgow: John Reid & Co., 1833)
45. The Battle Over The Hebrew Vowel Points, Examined Particularly As Waged in England, by Thomas D. Ross Online
46. (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 413-435)Online
47. http://av1611.com/kjbp/ridiculous-kjv-bible-corrections/Yahweh-Jehova-YHVH.html
48. ^ http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:iPaM7xkY6W4J:www.emmanuel-newington.org/seminary/resources/Whitfield.pdf+Peter+Whitfield,+1748&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AFQjCNHvvPvD5AlbbkqQ4zRqjlgic-Q-4g
49. Nehemia Gordon, The Pronunciation of the Name
50. John Gill, "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents", Vol. 3, p. 429.
51. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, pp. 499-560
52. John Gill, "A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents", Vol. 3, pp. 549-560.
53. ^ A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 538-542
54. ^ (In Awe of Thy Word, G.A. Riplinger-Chapter 11, page 422-435)Online,A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points, and Accents, by John Gill, p. 540 Online Cite error: The named reference "Online" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
55. http://av1611.com/kjbp/ridiculous-kjv-bible-corrections/Yahweh-Jehova-YHVH.html
56. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, pp. 548-560
57. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill
58. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 461-462
59. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 501
60. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, pp. 512-516
61. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 522
62. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 531
63. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 535-536
64. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 536-537
65. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, p. 544
66. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, Volume 3, p. 499
67. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, Volume 3, p. 531
68. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives one definition of "tittle" as "a point or small sign used as a diacritical mark in writing or printing".
69. The Battle Over The Hebrew Vowel Points, Examined Particularly As Waged in England, by Thomas D. Ross, pp. 13-14 Online
70. A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, John Gill, Volume 3, p. 435
71. The Battle Over The Hebrew Vowel Points, Examined Particularly As Waged in England, by Thomas D. Ross, pp. 16-17 Online
72. http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/CriticalTexts/witfields.htm
73. Whitfield's critical texts
74. The Battle Over The Hebrew Vowel Points, Examined Particularly As Waged in England, by Thomas D. Ross Online
75. ^ Jewish Virtual Library: Vowels and Points
76. At Home with Hebrew
77. Page H. Kenney, Biblical Hebrew: an introductory grammar 1992
78. Old Testament Manuscripts
79. James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, p. 30
80. The Dead Sea Scrolls Biblical Manuscripts
81. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Graphological Investigation
82. William P. Griffin, Killing a Dead Language: A Case against Emphasizing Vowel Pointing when Teaching Biblical Hebrew
83. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A College Textbook and a Study Guide, pp. 75-76
84. Godfrey Higgins, On the Vowel Points of the Hebrew Language, in The Classical Journal for March and June 1826, p. 145
85. Higgins, pp. 146-149
86. Augustin Calmet, Dictionary of the Bible, pp. 618-619]<ref<[http://www.vancepublications.com/cr/cr6ex.pdf B. Pick, The Vowel-Points Controversy in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries
87. See Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.EH.OW.AH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH, pp. 209, 210.
88. See page 8
89. In his work, Smith is commenting on the matter: "In the decade of dissertations collected by Reland, Fuller, Gataker, and Leusden do battle for the pronunciation Jehovah, against such formidable antagonists as Drusius, Amama, Cappellus, Buxtorf, and Altingius, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, fairly beat their opponents out of the field; "the only argument of any weight, which is employed by the advocates of the pronunciation of the word as it is written being that derived from the form in which it appears in proper names, such as Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, &c. Their antagonists make a strong point of the fact that, as has been noticed above, two different sets of vowel points are applied to the same consonants under certain circumstances. To this Leusden, of all the champions on his side, but feebly replies. The same may be said of the argument derived from the fact that the letters מוכלב, when prefixed to יהוה, take, not the vowels which they would regularly receive were the present pronunciation true, but those with which they would be written if אֲדֹנָי, adonai, were the reading; and that the letters ordinarily taking dagesh lene when following יהוה would, according to the rules of the Hebrew points, be written without dagesh, whereas it is uniformly inserted."
90. Image of it.
91. The New Jerusalem Bible (1985), the Amplified Bible (1987), the New Living Translation (1996), the English Standard Version (2001), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004).
92. See Civic Heraldry and here. Also, Civic Heraldry of the United Kingdom)
93. Awake!, December 2007, p. 20, "How God’s Name Has Been Made Known", "The commonly used form of God’s name in English is Jehovah, translated from the Hebrew , which appears some 7,000 times in the Bible." The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever, p. 7: "Nobody knows for sure how the name of God was originally pronounced. Nevertheless, many prefer the pronunciation Jehovah. Why? Because it has a currency and familiarity that Yahweh does not have." Awake!, January 22, 2004, cover series of articles "Do You Know God by Name?", mostly reproduced here. The Watchtower, September 1, 2008, "Why Use God’s Name if Its Pronunciation Is Uncertain?", p. 31. The Watchtower, July 15, 1964, p. 424, "What Is The Name?": "The vital point is not whether “Yahweh” or some other form of the Divine Name is more correct in Hebrew. The vital point is whether you use the pronunciation common to your language." All of these sources published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
94. Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon
95. ^ Charles William King, The Gnostics and their remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (1887), p. 285.
96. "This is in fact a very correct representation, if we give each vowel its true Greek sound, of the Hebrew pronunciation of the word Jehovah." Charles William King, The Gnostics and their remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (1887), p. 199, 200.
97. Praeparatio evangelica 10.9.
98. The Grecised Hebrew text "εληιε Ιεωα ρουβα" means "my God Ieoa is mightier". ("La prononciation 'Jehova' du tétragramme", O.T.S. vol. 5, 1948, pp. 57, 58.
99. Article in the Aster magazine (January 2000), the official periodical of the Greek Evangelical Church.
100. Greek translation by Ioannes Stanos.
101. Published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
102. Exodus 6:3, etc.
103. Dogmatike tes Orthodoxou Katholikes Ekklesias (Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church), 3d ed., 1997 (c 1958), Vol. 1, p. 229.
104. Dahlia M. Karpman, "Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition" (Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 14 (1967)), p. 121.
105. ^ See comments at Exodus 6:2, 3 in his Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures (1800). Also, Rev. Richard Barrett's A Synopsis of Criticisms upon Passages of the Old Testament (1847) p. 219.
106. ^ At his work Pugio Fidei. At page 152 of Gérard Gertoux's book The name of God Y.eH.oW.aH which is pronounced as it is written I_EH_OU_AH is a photo of a bilingual Latin (or Spanish) text and Hebrew text written by Raymond Martin in 1278, with in its last sentence "יְהוָֹה" opposite "Yohoua".
107. ^ At his book Victory Against the Ungodly Hebrews. Gérard Gertoux, The name of God Y.eH.oW.aH, p. 153. See also ; George Moore, Notes on the Name YHWH (The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Jan., 1908), pp. 34-52.
108. Charles IX of Sweden instituted the Royal Order of Jehova in 1606.
109. ^ Scholia in Vetus Testamentum, vol. 3, part 3, pp. 8, 9, etc.
110. For example, Gesenius rendered Proverbs 8:22 in Latin as: "Jehova creavit me ab initio creationis". (Samuel Lee, A lexicon, Hebrew, Chaldee, and English (1840) p. 143)
111. "Non enim h quatuor liter si, ut punctat sunt, legantur, Ioua reddunt: sed (ut ipse optime nosti) Iehoua efficiunt." (De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis (1518), folio xliii. See Oxford English Dictionary Online, 1989/2008, Oxford University Press, "Jehovah"). Peter Galatin was Pope Leo X's confessor.
112. Sir Godfrey Driver, Introduction to the Old Testament of the New English Bible.
113. See Poole's comments at Exodus 6:2, 3 in his Synopsis criticorum biblicorum.
114. The State of the printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered: A Dissertation in two parts (1753), pp. 158, 159)
115. The First Twelve Psalms in Hebrew, p. 22.

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• Names of God
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• Yahweh
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