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# The name of God in Judaism

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In Judaism God has several names. The most important name of God is the Tetragrammaton? YHVH. Because Jews considered it sinful to pronounce, the correct pronounciation of this name was forgotten -- the original Hebrew texts only included consonants. Modern scholars conjecture that it was pronounced "Yahweh".

Jews also call God Adonai, or Lord. Since pronouncing YHVH is considered sinful, Jews would use Adonai instead in prayers. When the Masoretes? added vowel pointings to the text of the Tanach in the first century CE, the gave the word YHVH the vowels of Adonai, to remind the reader to say Adonai instead. Many Christian bible translators misinterpreted this to mean that God's name was Jehovah, which is the result of combining Adonai's vowels with YHVH's consonants.

Orthodox Jews believe that even Adonai is too holy to say except in prayer; so in conversation they will call God haShem, which is Hebrew for "the Name". Many Orthodox Jews also write "G-d" instead of "God": while this is by no means required by their religion (only the Hebrew name, not the English, is holy), they do it to remind themselves of the holiness attached to God's name.

English translations of the Bible generally render YHVH as "LORD" (in small capitals), and Adonai as "Lord" (in normal case).

Scholars disagree as to the meaning of the name Yahweh -- many believe it means something like "I am the One Who Is".

Does the contents of this article belong somewhere else?

  I would recommend moving it to Yahweh. The articles are very similar at this point anyway.
  One small point that likely belongs in a Talk page (but I'm too lazy to create one for a page that should disappear soon anyway) is that of the "YHVH" English rendering of the Tetragrammaton.
  The Hebrew letter represented as "V" in this rendering is "vav" which, in Ancient Hebrew [if I understand correctly--I took Arabic, not Hebrew] was pronounced just like the ancient Roman "v" was pronounced--as a W. Is there any particular reason for rendering it "YHVH" instead of "YHWH"? Should we mention this point somewhere, or no?

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Last edited August 5, 2001 12:03 am (diff)
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