Yahweh, Jehovah, or Jesus?
by
Jason Dulle
JasonDulle@yahoo.com
Question:
Bro Dulle, I was wondering if you could help me to understand why the name "Yahweh" is not found in our King James Version. It seems to me that if His name is Yahweh we should call Him by His correct name. Also, in the New Testament, His name is Jesus. There is no "J" sound in the Hebrew alphabet. Please be so kind and enlighten me on the reason why we don't call Him by His name Yahweh. I want to know him by His name—Yehoshuah or Jesus?
Answer:Thank you for visiting our site. Let me try to answer your question.. Yahweh is not written in the KJV for the same reason that Iesous is not found in the KJV—the translators used the Anglicized pronunciation of the Hebrew and Greek names. I don’t have a problem with pronouncing the Hebrew and Greek names in an Anglicized way, but the name "Jehovah" is not even an Anglicized pronunciation of God’s name in the OT. It arose from a misreading of the OT name of God by medieval theologians. I detail the way in which this shift from Yahweh to Jehovah occurred in my article titled "Is Jehovah the Name of God." Because Jehovah is not even close to the Hebrew name for God, I do prefer to stay away from any claim that God’s name is Jehovah. Yahweh is a much closer rendering of the OT name.
Regarding Jesus, it is not a matter of Yehoshuah or Jesus. It is a matter of Iesous or Jesus. Yehoshuah is Hebrew, but the NT is written in Greek, and thus the Hebrew name of Jesus does not appear. Jesus is a transliteration directly from the Greek word Iesous. Greek does not have the "J" sound, but English does. Before the late seventeenth-century the name of Jesus was written as "Iesus" and pronounced with a "Y" sound as in Greek. The original KJV of 1611 actually has it written this way.. But in the late seventeenth-century English speakers began pronouncing words that began with the letter "I" with a "J" sound. In time there was a hook added at the bottom of the letter I to indicate that the "J" sound should be made even though it was the letter "I." Over time the "J" sound took on a life of its own and became part of our alphabet as a separate letter from the "I," and was used in other places than just the beginning of words. This is how we went from saying "Iesous" to "Jesus." The NT does not spell Jesus’ name as "Yehoshuah" because the NT was written in Greek, not Hebrew, and that spelling is Hebrew. There are some people who insist that we must pronounce Jesus’ name according to the Hebrew name, but I believe that such a stance is gravely in error. See my article titled "Is the Name of the Messiah Yeshua?" to see why I believe this is so.
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