Reprinted Here from “INSIGHT Volume 7 Number 1 October 2008”
This question is asked often, and reasonably so, as people study the Holy Scriptures searching for the truths of this ancient book; this all-time best seller. Nearly all Bible translations omit the Creator’s great Name, Yahweh, going against the divine Law which decrees we are to not take Yahweh’s name in vain, treating it as a vain thing, not even worth pronouncing. It reads “You shall not take a false oath in the name of Yahweh your Elohim; for Yahweh will not declare him innocent who takes an oath in his name falsely! (Exodus 20:7) Despite nearly 7,000 mentions of this great Being in the Old Testament, to this day armies of scholars simply look the other way when they translate YHWH as LORD in English.
The irony is, often following the lead of Jewish scholars, translators avoid an English rendering of the four Hebrew letters of the Creator’s name by claiming it’s pronunciation ” “cannot be known.” However, they somehow translate hundreds and hundreds of other Old Testament Hebrew names into English with great confidence. Also thousands of words needing vowel points for pronunciation and meaning are assuredly translated giving us the proper rendering of the text. Now honestly, how can pronunciation of all these other names, nouns, and verbs etc., be known and translated with such accuracy, but somehow Yahweh’s name is supposed to be so obscure? One can hardly avoid the suspicion that something is grossly amiss in this picture, and that a massive bias exists against this supremely important name!
But what did the Messiah Yahshua have to say about this matter of the Father’s name? Here is what He said, “I came in the name of my Father, and you did not receive me; if another should come in his own name, you would receive him.” (John 5:43). He came in the Father’s name and spoke that name: “And I have made your name known to them, and I am still making it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be among them, and I be with them.” (John 17:26; emphasis mine).
Obviously He was not omitting it, not even pronouncing it. On the contrary, He came in that Name openly speaking it! Since He spoke it, so must we! He set the example we must follow Notice, “For to this purpose you were called, because the Messiah also died for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps” (I Peter 2:21).
Now, who was His Father? There are two verses in Proverbs directly related to Yahshua’s statement: “Tell me; who has ascended up into heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a handkerchief? Who has established all the borders of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if you can tell? 5 Every word of Elohim is pure; he is a shield to those who put their trust in him. (Proverbs. 30:4-5).
Verse 4 certainly shows this being has a Son, and it was the Son (Mark 1:1; 3:11; 13:32; Luke 8:28; John 1:18; Heb. 1:2; I John 1:3 and 2:22) who came to establish a “better covenant” (Heb. 8:6; See also 1 John 5:11 showing what the covenant does.. .gives eternal life).
Let us look as some of the texts, Proverbs. 30:4-5 “...gathered the wind in His fists ... established the ends of the earth...” in connection with Isa. 40:28: “...Yahweh ...the Creator of the end of the earth” and with Psalm 104:1,5: Bless Yahweh, O Yahweh you laid the foundation of the earth, clearly establish Yahweh is the answer to that question, “what is his name” (Proverb 30 4) He is the Father who does these things.
In conjunction with the statement in John 5:43 mentioned earlier, that he came in his Father’s name notice this record, “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord (Greek Kurios) … Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9) This is a quote from Psalm 118:26, in which the name Yahweh (mistranslated LORD) is explicitly used.
These Scriptures, (Pry. 30:4-5; John 5:43, and Matt. 21:9) give us weighty evidence that Yahshua came in Yahweh’s great name as His representative, showing that Yahweh is the Father’s name. There are many such Old Testament passages quoted in the New Testament which nail down that Yahweh’s name was used extensively by Yahshua when referring to “the Father.”
Another important point is the Messiah came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of Yahweh. He even gave a model prayer in which He said, “...Father who art in heaven ..THY Kingdom come ..” (Luke 11:2). So it was, and is, the Father’s Kingdom which is to come on the earth. Who is the Father? Yahweh is His name.
Here is another example where a Greek name, theos [is translated in a quote of the Old Testament clearly showing the Greek word should be translated as Yahweh. The Father’s identity is shown by noting that the King James Version of the Bible and most all other versions use the word “God” in Mark 1:14: “...Yahshua came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God” (also v. 15, and Acts 20:25).
The word “God” is the Greek word “theos” which refers to a Greek deity, as mentioned above. This same word is used in Matthew 4:4, “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” This verse is a quote of Deuteronomy 8:3 in which LORD (KJV) instead of God is used to translate the Creator’s name. The word LORD (in capitals) is used to replace the Hebrew YHWH, the Tetragramaton, pronounced “Yahweh” and is well known despite cries to the contrary. Note, the short or “poetic” form “Jah” [should replace “J”: “Yah”] is explicitly translated in some versions (Psa. 68:4; KJV, Young’s Literal, Concordant Old Testament).
What this tells us is that theos should be translated Yahweh, not the other way around, since Yahshua is directly quoting the Law. Too, since the Law absolutely cannot change, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass then one tittle of the law to fail.” (Luke 16:17), it is totally illegal to substitute any other name for Yahweh in the law! Theos is not the same as Yahweh. The Greek writers simply made a grievous mistake in putting Theos for Yahweh in Yahshua’s quote of Deuteronomy 8:3. Yahshua would not replace the name the name of the Heavenly Father with a pagan deity’s name. Remember it was Yahshua who emphatically said, “.. Hallowed be thy name (Mathew 6:9).
But is not the first or only time someone illegally replaced the name of Yahweh with the name of a pagan deity as we have seen in other examples already.
Here is an explicit undeniable example from history. The original use of Yahweh in the Greek is found in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament (denoted: LXX) where earlier copies retained YHWH in the otherwise Greek text and not “Kurios” (Lord). A fragment of a first century C.E., LXX quoting Zech. 8:19-21 and 8:23-9:4 uses “Yahweh.” This copy is in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum.
But notice this! The Alexandrine Manuscript of the LXX dated 400 years LATER, replaced “Yahweh” with KY and KC, abbreviated forms of the Greek “Kurios” (“Lord”), (See The DIVINE NAME That Will Endure Forever[1]). Obviously, someone tampered with the text and replaced Yahweh with the Greek deity Kurios!
The fragment of the LXX containing YHWH, the Tetragramaton, is the Greek Papyrus Fouad 266:
W.G. Waddell, The Tetragramaton in the LXX, JTS 45 (1944), 157-61. Ernst Wurthwein’s, The Text of the Old Testament, Plate 29 (179) also shows the Tetragramaton in the later square Hebrew script within the Greek text.
The Greek Papyrus Fouad 266 is one of the earliest examples of the LXX. Wurthwein (p. 6) also says, Tètragramaton is found in the old (archaic) Hebrew letters much differently shaped then the latter square characters. In a fragmentary leather scroll containing the Greek text of the minor prophets.” This scroll apparently written between 50 BCE and CE 50 was discove4l in 1952[2].
The tetragramaton, the four letters of the Creator’s name, is inscribed numerous churches and cathedrals. It is detailed on the forehead of a statue representing an angel found on the tomb of Pope Clement XIII in St. Pete Basilica, the Vatican. It can also be seen in the Foujrviere Catholic Basilica, Lyons France, the Bourges Cathedral, France, a church in La Celle, Dunoise, France, a church in Digne, southern France, a church in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Strasbourg Cathedral, France, and Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Venice, Italy.
Who can reasonably ignore Yahweh’s great name in the face of all this evidence? Let us praise the name of Yahweh as did David and numerous others over the centuries!
[1] Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania 1984, p26
[2] See The Bible Advocate From Our readers section June 1991; p16
