True Pronunciation Prophesied to Be Lost!
The Bible even prophesied that the pronunciation of this name should be lost to us today! Notice Jeremiah 23: 25-27:
"I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed . . . which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their Fathers have forgotten my name for Baal."
The Jews in Jeremiah's day knew how to pronounce the word YHWH. But through the dreams of their false teachers they were misled into believing that the word YHWH should not be pronounced — that it is too holy a word to be uttered! And so the true pronunciation of the word became lost!
No one today knows absolutely how it should be pronounced. This is exactly what Jeremiah prophesied in these verses over 2500 years ago!
Here is what Rotherham says about this name in his Emphasized Bible, page 25: "The true pronunciation seems to have been Yahwe . . . The accent should be on the final syllable." The Jewish Encyclopedia says of this name: ". . . the original pronunciation must have been Yahweh, or Yahaweh" (Article "Names of God," Volume IX, page 161).
So the pronunciation of YHWH is definitely not Jehovah. Nor do any exact means today exist of knowing precisely how it is to be pronounced — YET THE MEANING OF THIS NAME PRESERVED FOR US TODAY. It means the "Eternal," the "Everliving," "the Eternal Lord." The meaning of the Almighty's name is far more important than its mere sound.
Now notice definite SCRIPTURAL PROOF that it is proper to TRANSLATE the names of God so that we may understand what they mean in whatever language we speak today!
Part of Old Testament Not Written in Hebrew!
Some sects deny we should ever translate the Hebrew names of Deity. But notice the Bible evidence!
In the Old Testament the English word "God" is often a rendering of the Hebrew words "El," "Eloah," and "Elohim." Were these Hebrew names ever translated into other tongues in the original inspired Old and New Testaments?
The answer is a resounding Yes!
When Babylon conquered the Kingdom of Judah (604-585), Hebrew gradually ceased to be the language of common speech of the Jews. Hebrew was replaced by Aramaic, spoken throughout the Babylonian Empire. Daniel wrote five whole chapters of his prophetic book in Aramaic — chapters 2 through 6. And Ezra wrote four whole chapters of his work in Aramaic — chapters 4 through 7.
When Daniel and Ezra referred to the Creator in these chapters, did they use the old Hebrew words, or their Aramaic translations?
The surprising answer is that Daniel and Ezra TRANSLATED the Hebrew words for God into the Aramaic word ELAH! In 78 different places in these 9 chapters, the Aramaic word ELAH is used to translate the Hebrew word for "God"!
If the Almighty intended that His name should be pronounced only in Hebrew, then Daniel and Ezra were false prophets! But Daniel and Ezra were not false prophets! They were inspired men! They were inspired to translate the Hebrew word for God into the Aramaic word ELAH which means God! Every word — every letter — which Ezra and Daniel were inspired to write has been preserved for us today! Not one jot or tittle — the least letters or marks of the alphabet — in the Old Testament has been lost (Matthew 5:18; Luke 16:17).
Since the Creator inspired His prophets to translate the Hebrew word for God into the Aramaic ELAH, which means "God" in Aramaic, then it is fitting and proper that the Hebrew word ELOHIM should be translated "God" into the English translations of the Old Testament!
"God" Is NOT a Pagan Name
Some "Hebrew Name" sects contend that it is a sin to use the word "God"! They reason that because the word God was used by our ancestors to refer to their idols, it is improper to use it to refer to the Creator. But notice what the Bible reveals about this very question in Romans 1:21:
"When they [the Gentile nations] knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and to creeping things." And notice verse 28, ". . . they did not like to retain God in their knowledge."
The nations once knew God, but they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into images — idols! They attached the name of their Creator to their idols.
Notice the astounding proof of this in the Old Testament!
In the inspired Hebrew of the Old Testament the Hebrew word ELOHIM — which means "the God Kingdom," or "the God Family" — is used 240 times to refer to PAGAN, HEATHEN "GODS" ! In two places this word is also translated "goddess" in the Old Testament.
Again, the Hebrew word EL is once translated "idol" and 15 times translated "god" — and refers to the heathen gods. The Hebrew word Eloah is five times used in the Old Testament to refer to heathen "gods." In 16 different places Ezra and Nehemiah were inspired to use the Aramaic word ELAH to refer to the heathen "gods" of the Aramaic-speaking people!
Thus if it is a sin to use the English word "God" to refer to the Creator — merely because our pagan ancestors used it to refer to their idols — then it is also a sin to use the Hebrew words Elohim, Eloah, El, or the Aramaic Elah to refer to the Creator because these words were also used by our pagan ancestors to refer to their pagan idols in Old Testament times!
God inspired His prophets to use in the Old Testament Scriptures the very same Hebrew words for both pagan idols and the true Creator! It is just as right and proper for us today to use the English word "God" when referring to the Creator!
"God" is simply the English word for the Supreme Deity. Like the Hebrew Elohim, it also refers to idols which men have falsely claimed to be God.
Now let us notice how God inspired the apostles to write His name in the inspired Greek New Testament.
The Name in the New Testament
The words of your Savior are given to us in the New Testament. Before He ascended to heaven, He promised His disciples, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
Heaven and earth have not passed away! Neither have the words of the Savior! They are found inspired in the New Testament today! How were the names of Deity rendered in the New Testament for the Greek-speaking converts? Notice!
Paul was sent to the Gentiles — particularly the Greek-speaking Gentiles. His ministry covered the whole Greek-speaking world. The Greeks did not know Hebrew or Aramaic. They knew Greek. How did Paul explain to these Greek converts who the Father and who the Son were? What names did he use for the Greeks when referring to the Creator?
The answer is — he used the Greek words for "God," "Lord," "Christ," the "Word," and "Jesus." God inspired him to translate the Hebrew word El, meaning "God," into the Greek word Theos. God inspired Paul in the New Testament to translate the Hebrew word YHWH into the Greek word Kyrios, meaning "Lord."
In 665 different places in the New Testament the apostles were inspired to translate the Hebrew word YHWH into the Greek word Kyrios, meaning the eternal "Lord." And 1,345 times the apostles were inspired to translate the Hebrew word for God into the Greek word Theos — which means "God" in the Greek language! These two Greek words — Kyrios and Theos — meaning "Lord" or "God" in Greek, are found hundreds of times in the gospels, in the very words of Jesus Himself! And Jesus said His words would not pass away — Matthew 24:35. Either these are the inspired words of Jesus, or He lied — and if He lied, you have no Savior! He did not lie. These are His words. He inspired His apostles to translate the names of God from the Hebrew into the Greek when writing to the Greek converts; and He has seen to it that not one word has perished or been lost!
There is not one authoritative New Testament manuscript with the names of Deity written in Hebrew! There is not one New Testament manuscript which supports the idea that the apostles exclusively used Hebrew names for God when speaking to the Greek people.
New Testament Inspired in Greek
Some sects are unwilling to admit what the inspired New Testament plainly says! They falsely claim that the New Testament was not written originally in Greek. They assume that the Jewish Christians could not understand Greek. They would have us believe that Paul wrote to the Greek converts in Greece, and Asia Minor, and Rome in Aramaic instead of Greek! This is not true!
Greek was the one universal language which united the common people in the Roman Empire in New Testament times. The Jewish historian Josephus himself testified to Greek as the language which the Jews everywhere understood in New Testament days! Not only did the Jews who lived in the Greek world speak Greek, but even the Jews who lived in Palestine, he declares, were well acquainted with Greek! Greek-speaking Jews were so prevalent in Palestine that synagogues for them had to be built (Acts 6:9). Jewish law for Palestine permitted that the Scripture "may be read in a foreign tongue to them that speak a foreign tongue" (Megillah 2 § 1). And it was further permitted "that the Books [of the Bible] may be written in any language," but that at the time of Christ the Books were "only permitted to be written in Greek" (Megillah 1 § 8). (From The Mishnah by Herbert Dan, Oxford University Press)
Though the native-born Jews in Palestine in the days of the apostles generally used Aramaic as their common language, yet Greek was the next in importance even to them.
Josephus tells us why the Greek language, after Aramaic, was so common with the Jews in Palestine:
"I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with such an exactness" — Josephus spoke Greek with an Aramaic accent — "for our nation does not encourage those who learn the languages of other nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment [learning Greek!] AS COMMON, not only to all sorts of freeman, but to as many of the servants as pleased to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, [which was rare among the Jews) and is able to interpret their meaning" (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XX, chapter XI, Section 2).
Notice that it was the rare Jewish scholar who learned Hebrew. It was common for the people — freeman and even servants — to learn Greek! It was more difficult to learn the Hebrew!
Now let us notice the testimony of history as to the language in which the books of the New Testament were inspired. From the Church History of Eusebius, Book VI, chapter 14, we read: ". . .the epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul, and . . . it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but . . . Luke TRANSLATED it carefully and published it for the Greeks, and hence the same style of expression is found in this epistle and in the Acts."
Notice that to the Jews Paul "became a Jew." In order to gain the audience of the Jews, after being made a prisoner in 56 A.D., Paul spoke "in the Hebrew tongue" (Acts 21:40). Continuing with Acts 22:2: "And when they heard that he spoke in the Hebrew tongue to them, THEY KEPT THE MORE SILENCE."
Hebrew, in the days of the apostles, had become a language difficult to understand because Aramaic was the common tongue of the people and Greek was next most often spoken, followed by Hebrew.
So history tells us that, in order to influence the religiously sensitive Jews, Paul wrote his "Epistle to the Hebrews" in the Hebrew language. But notice, the letter to the Hebrews was inspired to be translated by Luke and published for the Greeks in the Greek language. It is Luke's inspired translation which God intended to be preserved for us.
Notice what the church historian Eusebius, in chapter 25 of Book VI, tells us about the first gospel: "Among the four gospels, which are the only disputable ones in the Church of God under heaven," he wrote, "the first was published by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language." Jerome tells us, in his "Lives of Illustrious Men" chapter 3, that Matthew's gospel was translated into the Greek language for the whole Church. It is Matthew's inspired Greek gospel which God has preserved.
These two are the ONLY books of the New Testament which were ever asserted to have been written in Hebrew or Aramaic!
The Aramaic version of the Bible which we have today is admittedly a translation from the Greek despite what Dr. Lamsa mistakenly claims.