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Do You Want To Hear A Joke?
 

During World War II, my father told me a joke.  He said, "An American soldier challenged a German soldier to a contest of a tug of war with a piece of steak between their teeth.  Through gritted teeth, the American said, 'Are you ready?'  To which the German replied, 'Yah.' "

Because the Jews were superstitious about mis-using Yahweh's Name, they refused to use it at all, wrongly changing His Name to something else, like El, Elohim, Adonai.  To keep the people from using Yahweh's Name, they decided to put SOME WARNING MARKS, EVERY ONE OF THE  6,823 times Yahweh was used in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The warning marks were the vowel markings from Adonai and Elohim.  These marks that they spread across the Name of Yahweh, were a kind of "skull and cross-bones" sign, warning the people to NOT pronounce the Sacred Name!  These marks were intended to convey the message, "Warning!  Do NOT pronounce this Name!!!  Substitute some other name, but NOT this one.  At least two reasons were given as warning: 

1)  The Name is too sacred!

            2)  If you pronounce the Name, you might become guilty of taking It "in vain".  But, keep in mind, the REAL reason people were warned against pronouncing Yahweh's Name, is because the devil did NOT want Yahweh's Name to be used, understood, known, appreciated, or taught!

The following suggestions have been made over the centuries as to what to use in place of the Name Yahweh:

            Adonai = equally the name of heathen gods of other nations.

Elohim = another title for God, or for a god or gods.

"Hashem" = in the Hebrew language, it simply means, "The Name!", so, instead of saying "Yahweh", they simply said, "The Name".

G-d, or L-rd, or, 'LORD'

Can you imagine Yahweh using His Name, "Yahweh", 6,823 times, over and over again, saying, "My Name is Yahweh!"  By My Name, 'Yahweh', I shall be known!", only to have the Enemy come along and tell Yahweh's people, "Hey, dummies, it is not important for you know His Name, or use His Name, or understand His Name, don't write or speak His Name, don't appreciate or honour or pray or sing in His Name, and don't even think of trying to teach His Name to others, etc."  Let me ask you: 

How many times have you used or prayed or understood or revered the Name of Yahweh, in this last year? 

How many times in your church? 

Any other place or people?

THE GERMAN SAID, "JAH"!

The scribes decided to use just the consonants from Yahweh or Y-H-W-H, so people would know Who was being referred to. But, then they decided to take the consonants from Yahweh, or, Y-h-w - h, and the vowels from Adonai, or Elohim to construct these warning signs.  Then, about the 16 century, a German theologian wanted to translate the Name, so he looked at this skull and cross-bones warning sign and concluded that the whole thing was to be pronounced.  When he looked at the whole contraption, he decided that the whole thing should be pronounced something like this:  'J', in stead of Y, since he was German, and the Germans use the 'Y' as a 'J', then  e  h  o   v  a, or  J E H O V A H !   He changed the Hebrew "w" into a "v" 'waw' into a 'vav', since, again, the Germans pronounce the 'w' as a 'v'.  (Volks-wagon becomes "folks + vagen") Jehovah never, ever, was a proper name for God, yet that's what many people think His proper name should be!!!  Ha-HA!

Want to hear another joke?  Only this one is really sick. The word Allah, originally the name of an insignificant female idol goddess of fertility, one of many, many idols in the vicinity. Yet, over a billion people today call God 'Allah'!  God's proper name always has been and always will be Yahweh.

Why is it that every other name is brought across the languages, recognizeably, in its original form? Moses, Elijah, Joshua, John - all come down to us as roughly the same - but not God's Name! We do not call 'Johan Sebastian Bach', by the name of 'John 'gift-of-God' Big Man Back', or, 'Songwriter Jack', but we call Yahweh's Name = "LORD"!???  Tell me why?  We know why!  The devil made them do it.

I recently spoke to a highly reputable Hebrew scholar, from Bethel Seminary in St Paul, Minnesota, who was on three different Bible translation committees.  In every case, he pleaded with them, tried to persuade them, to use the proper Name for Yahweh, each and all of the 6,823 times it is SUPPOSED to be used.  All of the other scholars AGREED that God's proper Name is Yahweh.  They ALL agreed that it would have been proper to substitute Yahweh in ALL of the 6,823 times that the Hebrew Scriptures mandated it to be so.  But, it was at this point, that they all agreed to compromise what should have been, with the lame and sick excuse that "the people were not used to the Name 'Yahweh', that they would substitute the word "LORD" instead, though they all agreed that it was wrong to do so."!!!  They all out-voted my Hebrew Scholar friend, and used the same lame reasoning Moffatt used in his translation.

In Moffat's translation, in the comments at the introductory section at the beginning of his Bible, he readily admits that the Name for God, SHOULD BE 'YAHWEH', but, 'since the people are not used to it', he would, instead, use the word "The Eternal One"!!!  In this introduction, he apologizes, and admits that he is wrong to do so, but, reluctantly goes ahead, in every one of the 6,823 times where the Name Yahweh should be used, he, instead, used the phrase, "The Eternal One"!

Fortunately, there are SOME translators that have had the courage to use the Name of Yahweh, as God intended, in every one of the 6,823 times that His Name should be used.

Rotherham's Emphasized Bible, is an example.

The Jerusalem Bible, is another.

The Sacred Name Bible, is another.

            There are others. . .

Remember, the devil does NOT want Yahweh's Name to be known, used, understood, appreciated, or, taught to others.

Good Lord!

While there are many kinds of lords and gods, yet, there is only one Yahweh, the Mighty Right Now Creator King of Everything!

Thus, the Bible Translators added to the problem!  In Bible translation after translation, and in version after version, here's what they did. Many of them admitted in small print, sometimes, in front of their Bible, "We know that God's Name reeeeeeeeeeeally should be Yahweh, but, y'know, not very many people are used to that one, so, well, let's compromise, and call God what everyone voted that He be called, so, instead of calling Him what He should be called, instead of calling Him what He wants to be called, we'll just call Him 'God', or the 'Eternal' or the 'Almighty' or, 'Lord', or 'Jehovah' (an artificial name), or, 'Lord', or 'LORD' (all caps), or 'Allah' (as in the Nigerian Hausa language Bible)."  The Translators of the King James' Version and others said, "We know that it should be 'Yahweh', but just so you know when it should be 'Yahweh', well do it 'L-O-R-D' in capital letters, just so you will know." One problem is, there are many KJV (and many other) Bibles around, where they forgot (or neglected) to include that footnote or explanation, so most people have no way of knowing the difference between "LORD" and "Lord", or, that His Name should be Yahweh!