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"Jehovah" is a perversion of our Creator's Name

Question: Could you please explain where on earth the Jehovah's Witnesses got the idea that the Name of our Creator is Jehovah?

The truth is, Elohim has only ONE NAME and many titles. That one name is the transliteration of (or "YHWH" transliterated into English; most likely pronounced "YAHWEH" or "YAH-WAY"); or in simplified form, YAH (as in halel-u-YAH). YHWH (which is the Name ELOHIM Himself gave to Moshe (Moses) and which means "He is", so that's what we say when we pray, we call on the Elohim, ther true one, He Who Exists. When YHWH talks to Himself, it is I AM (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh). Here's a little history lesson then.

Exodus 3: And Mosheh said to Elohim, "See, when I come to the children of Yisra'el and say to them, 'The Elohim of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His Name?' what shall I say to them?" 14 And Elohim said to Mosheh, "I am that which I am." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Yisra'el, 'I am has sent me to you.'" (ISR)

NOTE: The Hebrew text reads: ’eyeh ’asher ’eyeh, the word ’eyeh being derived from hayah which means to be, to exist, but the Aramaic text here in v. 14 reads: ayah ashar ayah. This is not His Name, but it is an explanation that leads up to the revelation of His Name in v. 15, namely:

Exodus 3:15 And Elohim said further to Mosheh, "Thus you are to say to the children of Yisra'el, ' Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Yitsh'aq, and the Elohim of Ya'aqob, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, and this is My remembrance to all generations.' (ISR)

Anyway, as the Torah developed, YHWH allowed certain Hebrew TITLES to be used to designate Him, even though other cultures used these terms for their gods. These secondary appelations are El, Eloah, Elohim, El-Shaddai, Adon/Adonai, etc. These titles get a pass ONLY because YHWH directly gave permission. YHWH said He accepts no substitutes: "I am YHWH, that is My Name and I will not give my glory to another nor my praise to idols," (Isaiah 42:9-10).

As time passed, the Northern Kingdom favored "Elohim"; whereas the South continued with "YHWH". Guess which kingdom was blessed? The SOUTH! (Never mind that, in other respects they both lapsed into paganism and the like.) So, it would seem the lesson is clear that YOU MUST USE YHWH SOME OF THE TIME OR YOU ARE AT RISK. But this is not to suggest everyone who uses common names is damned. Rather, it may not be a good idea to never honor the Creator in the way He says, and could very well be held against you...

For people who sometimes claim we don't know how the Name is pronounced, well, that's actually beside the point, they can always use the Name "YAH" because that was never under the ban and the pronunciation there has never been disputed.

Moving on, after the return from Babylon, the synagogue system began to be set up. Sometime after Ezra but before Y'shua the rabbis decided to ban the use of the Name in the Temple, but allowed it locally. When the Temple was destroyed, the ban became universal.

Why? Well it had to do with the process of "protecting" Torah in oral tradition ... placing a "fence" or an extra rule around the rule we want to protect, with the idea that the new rule will ultimately minimize the chance of breaking the real one.

Unfortunately, history shows this doesn't work. For instance, look at Eve. She is the first "rabbi" in a way because she invented the first fence. In Genesis, Eve is only told not to EAT the forbidden fruit, 'for if you do, you shall surely die". But when relating the command - the Torah if you will - to the serpent, what does she say? She says she should not TOUCH OR EAT the fruit, lest she die. Her "fence" becomes part of her normal understanding of the command. As a result, when she does touch the fruit and doesn't die, the serpent can convince her that the fruit is safe! But YHWH never said not to touch the fruit, so touching means nothing, and because she broke the INNER command by eating it, guess what? She basically wrote her own eventual death sentence! The rabbis do this a lot too.

In the case of the ban, the rabbis looked at an incident in Leviticus where someone was struck dead for CURSING in the name of YHWH. Cursing is clearly a violation of the commandments. The rabbis then reasoned if you don't SPEAK the name, you can't CURSE in it.

But like Eve, their "fence" didn't work. Why? Because, in order to avoid SPEAKING the Name they had to SUBSTITUTE the Name, and substituting the Name is a violation of the THIRD COMMANDMENT! What most view as, "don't take the Name in VAIN" is actually SHAV, and SHAV means, "to substitute, make desolate, drain of power". So in trying to "protect" one commandment, they violated another equally important one! Is it any wonder then that Messiah was so critical of Oral Law (You have heard that it was SAID, but I SAY to you)?

Oh, and by the way, there are also 300 separate commands to shout, laud, praise, sing, play on instruments IN THE NAME OF YAHWEH.

So, this tradition carries forward into the Middle Ages, and starting in the year 500 or so, the Masoretes began putting the standard text together from all the ancient versions. They agreed on standard pronunciation as well, and they wanted to avoid pronouncing YAHWEH. By about the year 1000 their system (the system used by Jewry today) was in place. From this point on no changes to any part of the Torah were to take place. It will be chanted, sung and read identically forever.

But ... they began changing the text and they ADMIT it. They changed many references to YHWH into Adonai (134 in all, and they tell us where they did it, an honesty not shared by their Christian counterparts when they changed their texts). And after those changes, they decided to POINT (add vowels) to all the words in the Torah and MISLEAD their readers on how to pronounce the Name. Again, they SAY they did this. And so, they took the four letters of YHWH (yodh-hey-waw-hey) and ADDED vowels for "adonai" to throw the reader off. The result:

YAY-HOE-VAH (the sixth letter was originally a "W" but later sound changed to a V).

Isn't it interesting then that Christians would defend this Jewish practice but call them wrong on everything else? Interesting what happens due to political expediency...

So into this mix came the Protestants and later the Jehovas Witnesses. They picked this tradition up and then the letter J was invented in 1600, just in time for the King James Version! They tok out the "Y" and put in the "J", and now we had "JEHOVAH" - a totally false concoction based on a false tradition, based on a bad scriptural artifice!

Because of these things, the use of JEHOVAH is a mistake masquerading as piety. Jehovahs Witnesses believe they are being more righteous than others because they know "God" needs a name and they provide it. But actually, they are WORSE off because most know "God" is not a name anyway; rather a mere title, yet the JWs are substituting JEHOVAH for YHWH.

Do you know who else does this? The Muslims, with "ALLAH", which is at best a title corrupted into Arabic. The Jews at least still know the Name but simply don't say it. The JWs and the Muslims, on the other hand, act like THEIR name is the only one in the game. That's a much more grievous sin....