Evidential Faith: Jesus or Yahweh?

9.27.2010

Jesus or Yahweh?

I would first like to recommend an article by my friend and fellow theologian Jason Dulle. He has some very excellent remarks on Yahweh or Jesus? What is God's Name?

There is really no choice that needs to be made between Jesus or Yahweh (a pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton). I think this presupposes something unnecessary as well. In reality they are both the same name, but with one being a continued or expanded form of the other, describing what God does. Dulle notes this as well in his article:

"the problem with such a statement is rooted in the fact that it sets up a false dichotomy between "YHWH" and "Jesus," forcing us to decide between the two."

The Jewish Study Bible (non-Christian source) says,

"YHVH was probably originally pronounced "Yahweh," but in Second Temple times, as an expression of reverence, Jews began to avoid uttering it, substituting adonai and other surrogates. (As a reminder, to do so, in printed Hebrew Bibles the consonants are accompanied by the vowels of the surrogate words, leading to such hybrid English forms as Jehovah.") pg. 112

Yah or Jah is an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton. Some however do believe that this form, Yah or Jah, is the original form. I personally don't know for certain but others say it is a shortened form such as yeho, yo, yahu, yah which in some way represent the divine name known among the Israelites before the full name Jahveh or Yahweh was revealed on Mt. Horeb (Ex. 3:6-16).

This is not the LZ (landing zone) though. Think of it this way, what is the name of Jesus without YHWH/YHVH? His name is YHWH, YHWH is salvation. Indeed, by saying "I and my Father are one" is to identify Himself as Yahweh. There is no either/or here. God's name is YHWH because He is timeless existence but He is also Yeshua/Jesus because of what He is doing with us - saving us! We call on YHWH when we speak the name of Jesus.