Why do Christians persist in using the erroneous name Jehovah for the Semitic deity Yahweh?

Your question also contains an error--Moses married into a Palestinian family--& took the Storm God Yahweh from the Palestinian religion of the Kennites--then Moses converted that name into the Jewish deity.

Well, first of all, no one knows for sure about the Yahweh spelling or pronunciation either since there are no vowels in Hebrew. There are debates among Jewish translated even about how to say it. It's really just these letters - YHWH. So, if you're into technicality, you'll have to first accept that original Hebrew is different from even what it is now. Do I think that this means all translations are wrong? No. That is not what I'm saying at all. However, the thing is - no one used to even speak God's Name. The Jews consider it too holy. How wonderful if this society were so reverent - but anyway... and some of the Bible was written in Aramaic which is nearly extinct. It is still used, I'm just saying that really, people don't always have ALL the information when they correct others. Yahweh, Jehovah - either way, vowels have been added to four letters that refer to the Mighty God! Maybe try not to be so offended that there are people whom haven't been taught about the Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek or Latin languages. We can't all know everything! I Corinthians says that we will only know in part. That tells me that we are in this together and need to be patient with each other and fill in where others aren't as knowledgeable!

Be Blessed!

First of all, "Jehovah" predates Tyndale. And it was originally "Iehowah." With the "I" having the "Y" sound. But languages change. Pronunciations differ - how many dialects of English are there?

Second, no Hebrew scholar knows how Jehovah was originally pronounced. Some say it well have been pronounced "Yehowah" - the exact pronunciation that was introduced into English.

"Yahweh" is a "scholarly convention," not a "scholarly consensus." Some guy in the 1700's said "Hey! I think it was pronounced 'Yahweh.'" And it stuck for some reason. But there are other perfectly valid alternative pronunciations.

Also, NO Hebrew name in the English translations are transliterated directly from the Hebrew. Why make an exception for Jehovah's name? It is just an unnecessary continuation of an ancient Hebrew superstition that has no solid basis in the scriptures.

I may be mistaken about this but when Tyndale translated there was no J sound in the English language either. (too many years since that class)

But you are correct that Yahweh is probably closer to the name that is translated as Jehovah. My question though is why does this really make any difference? There really isn't a real strong argument for Yahweh either. Remember that there were no Hebrew vowels at one time. Yahweh may be a better guess than Jehovah but it is still only a guess.

The proper and personal name of Almighty God is:

יהוה

The four Hebrew characters are generally transliterated as "YHWH" (that is, each Hebrew character is directly replaced by a different character with the same sound in another language's character set). Likely, the ancient Hebrews pronounced " יהוה " or "YHWH" as "Yehowah".

It is true that the Almighty did not say, "Listen, thousands of years from now when a new language called English comes along, they can pronounce my name as 'Jehovah' and that's fine." Instead, like with any and every personal name, different languages TRANSLATE personal names to fit their lingual tendencies. George becomes "Hor-hey" in Spanish or "Gay-org" in German and no one gets upset.

The name "Jehovah" was not fabricated "from whole cloth" (as it were). As speakers of English find it easier to say "Jesus" than "Yeheshua", so "Jehovah" seems to have originated as an honest attempt to pronounce "Yehowah" (that is, "the Tetragrammaton"). The King James Version uses the name "Jehovah" four times (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4). A few place-names which include "Jehovah" are also left intact (see Genesis 22:14; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24). The shortened form of "Jehovah" is "Jah". KJV uses "Jah" at Psalm 68:4, and within the exclamation "Hallelu-jah" (or "Alleluia"), which literally means "praise Jah" (see Revelation 19:1-6).. ..

The phrasing of the tetragammon without vowels essentially cannot be pronounced, so some say "yahweh" to pronounce it. But the Masoretic text which added many vowel points sometime during the latter half of the first millenium, pronounces the name essentially as "yehovah". Modern Hebrew apparently use the 'v' as in vine sound, and it is apparently speculative that it was pronounced as the 'w' in wine[1], however the two sounds can sound the same even though the technique of their pronunciation may be different(wheww-ine vs v-ine). As far as the the 'j' vs 'y', "juh" is an English pronunciation of the Roman consonant 'j', which in Latin is actually pronounced as 'y'. In any case, it is the correct pronunciation in English.

First of all you have no way of knowing whether or not Yehweh is the correct name to begin with. Hebrew has no vowels and the only way the vowels were known was through the way it was spoken. However Hebrews never spoke the name of YHWH so no one including the Hebrews knew the pronunciation of the word. So today people just guess at the vowels, with most of them using the vowels fron Adonai, the name for Lord in the Bible. There is nothing wrong with translating a name into another language and that is all they have done. The important thing is not what the name is but who it is speaking about.

You make a very good point, but as so many people who watch television think that whatever is reported is true, so it is when something is in the Bible. It is so ingrained in some peoples mind that the Bible is infallible that they cannot admit that there is any error in it.

Now, something that is even more interesting is that people think that Jesus (Greek name for Joshua) is different from Jehovah (English translation of YHWH) when in reality they are the same person. We know that Jehovah referred to Himself as 'I AM' and later in the New Testament Jesus referred to Hemself also as 'I AM'.

This is the reason that people thing that God and Jesus are the same but the New Testament twice indicates that God the Father and Jesus are two distinct beings: at the baptism of Jesus when all three personages of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were represented. Then when Stephen was being stoned he looked up and sees Jesus at the right hand of God.

From this we learn that Jehovah (English YHWH) was the Spirit of Jesus prior to His embodiment and that after Jesus' resurrection Stephen literally saw God the Father and the resurrected Christ side by side.

Most Christian faiths teach that God is a Spirit and that God and Jesus are different manifestations of the same Being but if that is true then the indication is that God is deceiving us by saying that the resurrection was a parlor trick.

However, as God cannot lie, and Jesus has a perfected, glorified resurrected body, then they must be two different personages.

I know I got off the subject a bit but when speaking of Jehovah (YHWH) and Jesus (Greek for Joshua) I try to point out the problems that Christians have even in understanding that the two are actually the same.

It wasn't just William Tyndale that said Jehovah. It was quite a few other people that said it. You have to understand that the English language is a fairly new language in the scheme of things. It's filled with all sorts of weird sounds and rules(comparatively.) The important thing is that God himself knows who is talking to him and uses his name. If that person uses his name and pronounces it incorrectly but yet uses it with a clean heart, God knows this. The original pronunciation was lost ages ago. God also knows this. Man will try to the best of their ability to call upon his name. And if his heart is there, He'll listen, no even if the pronunciation is wrong.

Because in English we usually translate proper names that start with Yod in Hebrew with the English J. Both are valid.

I use Jehovah, because it is much more recongnizable by most people. Jesus' name in Aramaic (His native language) was Yeshua, but we translate it as Jesus.

Other names like Joshua, ect would all need to be translated as Yoshua, ect. There is no point in "correcting" them.

We would need to translate books of the Bible different. Yoshua, Yudges, ect.

Just like the Hallelujah would be Halleluyah. I prefer Alleluia.

It all has to do with Traditional names.

You are correct. It does not particularly matter which pronunciation you use, however, as long as we are talking about the same Personal God. I typically use Yahweh, or even the correct spelling YHWH, but have also been known to use Jehovah.