There
is a question that has troubled me for most of my adult life: "did Jesus
and his early disciples use God's personal name"?
Note
the following from Exodus 3:15 -
And God said moreover
unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God
of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto
all generations. (ASV)
John 17:6 -
I manifested thy name
unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou
gavest them to me; and they have kept thy word. (ASV)
John 17:11b, 12 -
Holy Father, keep them
in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are.
While I was with them, I kept them in thy name which thou hast given me: and I
guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition; that the
scripture might be fulfilled. (ASV)
And John 17:26 -
... and I made known
unto them thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou
lovedst me may be in them, and I in them. (ASV)
Since
1975, I have acquired and studied numerous articles and books which explore
this question; and as with so many important Bible related issues, scholars are
divided, with some affirming, and others denying. Earlier today whilst engaged
in some online research, I came across two extraordinary resources, that I had
no prior knowledge of, by one Pavlos D. Vasileiadis, an associate professor at
the Aristotle University of Thessalonki, which are germane to my question:
Vasileiadas
provides the following conclusions towards the end of the first paper:
In this article it was
attempted to demonstrate that,
(a) Despite the various
reasons that led to the silencing of the sacred Tetragrammaton, it long
remained an utterable name, at least in some circles;
(b) A more systematic
investigation of the various Greek renderings of the Tetragrammaton provides a
better understanding of the methods that were used;
(c) There is no unique or
universally “correct” rendering of the Hebrew name in Greek;
(d) The two Greek
renderings of the Tetragrammaton presented for the first time here, namely Γεχαβά (early 13th century) and Ἰεοβάχ (early 17th century) are both
following the /e–a|o–a/
vocalic
pattern; and
(e)
According to the available indications, a vocalic rendering pronounced /i.e.o.'a/ (/i.o.'a/), or /i.e.u.'a/ might probably have been
the proper pronunciation of the full Tetragrammaton in Greek during the Second
Temple period. (Page 71)
And
just a bit later, he provides some beautiful color plates of Hebrew and Greek
uses God's name in ancient manuscripts. (Pages 83-88)
In
addition to Vasileiadas'
above contributions, I would like to provide a few links to other online
resources that I have found to be useful in my studies:
JBL
article by, George Howard -
Masters
thesis by, Joëlle Alhadef-Lake -
"Greek
Transcriptions of the Tetragrammaton", G. Adolf Deissmann (in, Bible
Studies, pp. 319-336) -
Enjoy
!!!
Grace
and peace,
Addendum
- I
forgot to include the following essay by Gérard Gertoux:
Gertoux,
is also the author of the following book:
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