Tetragrammaton: Encyclopedia - Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton

Adonis | Anat | Asherah | Astarte | Ba'al | Berith | Dagon | El | Elyon | Elohim | Hadad | Moloch | Mot | Salem | Shaddai | Yaw

Adonai | El | Elohim | Elyon | Shaddai | Shekinah | YHWH

Adad | Amurru | An/Anu | Anshar | Asshur | Abzu/Apsu | Enki/Ea | Enlil | Ereshkigal | Inanna/Ishtar | Kingu | Kishar | Lahmu & Lahamu | Marduk | Mummu | Nabu | Nammu | Nanna/Sin | Nergal | Ninhursag/Damkina | Ninlil | Tiamat | Utu/Shamash

Of all the names of God, the one which occurs most frequently is the Tetragrammaton, appearing 6,823 times, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia. The Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia texts of the Hebrew Scriptures each contain the Tetragrammaton 6,828 times.

In Judaism, the Tetragrammaton is the ineffable name of God, and is therefore not to be read aloud. In the reading aloud of the scripture or in prayer, it is replaced with Adonai (Lord). Other written forms such as י (yod) ו (vav) (yw or Yaw); or י (yod) ה (heh) (yh or Yah) are read in the same way.

Outside of direct prayer, the word "Adonai" is not spoken by some Jews since to do so is considered a violation of the commandment not to use the Lord's name in vain. Therefore, the word is often read as HaShem (literally, "The Name"), or in some cases Ado-Shem, a composite of Adonai and HaShem. A similar rule applies to the word Elohim ("God"), which some Jews intentionally misprounced as Elokim for the same reason.

One theory regarding the disuse of the Tetragrammaton is that the Jewish taboo on its pronunciation was so strong that the original pronunciation may have been lost somewhere in the first millennium. Since then, many scholars (particularly Christians) have sought to reconstruct its original pronunciation. For example, around 1518 Christian theologians¹ introduced the pronunciation Yehovah, which is generally held to be implausible, based on the written form יְהֹוָה (read normally, "Yehovah") that was used to indicate to the reader of the Bible in Hebrew to pronounce it "Adonai" (אֲדֹנָי). (Note that due to a rule of Hebrew grammar, the beginning E of the first transliteration is analogous to the beginning A of the second, although they are pronounced differently.)

This theory regarding the disuse of the Tetragrammaton is the result of an interpretation of the Third of the Ten Commandments. The Jewish people stopped saying the Name by the 3rd century out of fear of violating the commandment "You shall not take the name of YHWH your God in vain" (Exodus 20:7).

Tetragrammaton - Meaning

According to one Jewish tradition, the Tetragrammaton is related to the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb הוה (ha·wah, "to be, to become"), meaning "He will cause to become" (usually understood as "He causes to become"). Compare the many Hebrew and Arabic personal names which are 3rd person singular imperfective verb forms starting with "y", e.g. Hebrew Yôsêph = Arabic Yazîd = "He [who] adds"; Hebrew Yiḥyeh = Arabic Yahyâ = "He [who] lives".

Another tradition regards the name as coming from three different verb forms sharing the same root YWH, the words HYH haya [היה]: "He was"; HWH howê [הוה]: "He is"; and YHYH yihiyê [יהיה]: "He will be". This is supposed to show that God is timeless. Other interpretations include the name as meaning "I am the One Who Is." This can be seen in the traditional Jewish account of the "burning bush" commanding Moses to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM [אהיה] has sent you." (Exodus 3:13-14) Some suggest: "I AM the One I AM" [אהיה אשר אהיה]. This may also fit the interpretation as "He Causes to Become." Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists" or "He who causes to exist".

This meaning has caused an English colloquial expression saying that this or that person is "the Big I Am round here".

The name YHWH was not always applied to a monotheistic God: see Asherah and other gods, Elohim (gods) and Yaw (god).

Tetragrammaton - Using consonants as semi-vowels

In Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written and the rest are written only ambiguously, as the vowel letters double as consonants (similar to the Latin use of V to indicate both U and V). See Matres lectionis for details. For similar reasons, an appearance of the Tetragrammaton in ancient Egyptian records of the 13th century BC sheds no light on the original pronunciation. ². Therefore it is, in general, difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling only, and the Tetragrammaton is a particularly bad example: two of its letters can serve as vowels, and two are vocalic place-holders, which are not pronounced. Not surprisingly then, Josephus in Jewish Wars, chapter V, wrote, "…in which was engraven the sacred name: it consists of four vowels". In Greek, they are Ιαου, which comes out to Yau, since iota is used to represent semi-vocalic 'y' (and omicron+ypsilon="oo").

Further, Josephus's four vowels are confirmed by theophoric stems in personal names, always: Yaho/Yahu/Y:ho/Y:hu.[1] These yield in English Yau and Yao, which are pronounced the same. Once again, the heh is not pronounced here in Hebrew, but is used instead as a place holder. Moreover, Gnostic texts, such as those Marcion wrote, discuss the Judaic god extensively, and spell the Tetragrammaton in Greek, Ιαω, that is "Yao." Lastly, Levantine texts (including those from ancient Ugarit) render the Tetragrammaton Yaw, pronounced "Yau."[2]

Tetragrammaton - Using the vowels of YHWH

Josephus wrote that the sacred name consisted of four vowels. Many sacred name ministries who believe that YHWH consists of four vowels pronounce these four vowels as "ee-ah-oo-eh" and believe that indicates God's name was either "Yahweh" or "Yahuweh". In what may be a coincidence, the Greek name "ιαουε" would have been pronounced "Yah-oo-eh". (Iota is used as both a vowel and a semi-vowel.)

Tetragrammaton - Vowel marks

To make the reading of Hebrew easier, marks or points above and below the letters were added to the text by the Masoretes, to function as vowels. See Niqqud for details. Several manuscripts from the 7th century and on contain vowel marks over the Tetragrammaton. Unfortunately, these do not shed much light on the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton itself. For example the Leningrad codex contains no fewer than six different variations on the vowel marks of the Tetragrammaton.

An added problem comes from the fact that the diacritical vowel marks on the Tetragrammaton may have served a purpose different than indicating the pronunciation. When the term is read out loud by Jews, the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the word Adonai ("my Lord(s)"), Elohim ("God(s)"), Hashem ("the name"), or Elokim (no meaning), depending on circumstances (see Jewish use of the word below). Since someone reading the text aloud might inadvertently pronounce the name, the diacritical vowels of Adonai or Elohim are normally printed with the consonant letters of the Tetragrammaton, to remind the reader to make the change, so the text contains the letters YHWH interlaced with the vowel marks of Adonai/Elohim (a masoretic device known as Q're perpetuum which was also applied in a number of other cases, such as giving the spelling הוא in the Pentateuch an "i" vowel diacritic to indicate that sometimes it should be pronounced as a feminine pronoun hi, rather than a masculine pronoun hu). This is the case in modern editions of the Hebrew Bible, and also explains a number of medieval codices. In other words, these marks do not and were never intended to explain how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton.

In particular, there is a possible explanation of the vowel marks on the Tetragrammaton in the Ben Chayim codex of 1525 (see its importance below). It is worth noting that the aleph in Adonai has a hataf-patah (pronounced "ah" in Modern Hebrew) under it while the yod in the Tetragrammaton has a sheva (pronounced as a very short "eh" in Modern Hebrew). This can be explained by rules of Hebrew grammar, which forbid a sheva under an aleph, although this explanation is not entirely satisfactory.

The first English transcription of the Tetragrammaton appeared on the title page of William Tyndale's translation of 1525 as "IEHOUAH." Thus began a period where the word was rendered like "Jehovah," which to modern Jehovah's Witnesses is the only sacred name of god and, they believe, was even used in the Greek of the New Testament. The Jerusalem Bible (1966) uses Yahweh exclusively.

Tetragrammaton - The Scholarly Reconstructed pronunciation יַהְוֶה i.e. Yahweh

The vowelized [ i.e. vocalized ] Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton "יַהְוֶה" ( i.e. Yahweh ) (see picture to the right) started to appear in scholarly sources in the early and mid 19th century. "יַהְוֶה" is sometimes referred to as a "Scholarly Reconstruction" and is based in large part on various Greek transcriptions (ιαουε—iaoue and ιαουαι—iaouai and ιαβε—Iabe) dating from the first centuries BC and AD.

Particularly cited is Clement of Alexandria's spelling of the Tetragrammaton in his Greek Stromata Book V. Chapter 6:34. The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. II's English translation of Clement of Alexandria's Greek Stromata, Book V. Chapter 6:34 reads:

As noted above, the Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. II translator wrote "Jave" in his translation of Stromata Book V. Chapter 6:34, however, questions have been raised about whether Clement of Alexandria used "ιαουε" or "ιαου" in the underlying Greek. - see Iaoue. "Yahweh" is thought to be an accurate Greek to English transliteration of "ιαουε" and "Jave" is thought to be an acceptable translation of "ιαουε", however the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1910-11 states that "Iaou" (Yau) not "Iaoue" is found at Stromata Book V. Chapter 6:34 in the 11th century Greek Codex Laurentianus V 3. ⁵

The last critical edition of the text of Clement of Alexandria is thought to be:

This 1981 critical edition of the Greek text of Clement of Alexandria notes that Greek Codex Laurentianus V 3 preserved the spelling "ιαου" yet still writes "ιαουε" at Stromata Book V. Verse 6:34 noting that "ιαουε" is found in a Greek Catena [i.e. Coisl. 113 fol. 368v ].

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 says: Inserting the vowels of Jabe [e.g. Latin form of Iabe] into the Hebrew consonant text, we obtain the form Jahveh (Yahweh), which has been generally accepted by modern scholars as the true pronunciation of the Divine name; ⁶. A possible "broad" transcription of this in terms of IPA symbols is [jah'we].

Some scholars suggested that the Josephus quote above supports this pronunciation.

Arguments based on possible interpretations, and on analogies with other Hebrew words, such as hallelujah, have also been introduced to support it.

Despite the work at reconstruction, it is still impossible to say with certainty how the name was originally pronounced, and discussion continues among scholars.

See some links below.

Tetragrammaton - Scholarly sources in which יַהְוֶה is found

The vowelized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton "יַהְוֶה" started to appear in scholarly sources in the 19th century, or possibly earlier.

Wilhelm Gesenius [1786-1842], who is noted for being one of the greatest Hebrew and biblical scholars, ⁷ wrote a Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament which was first translated into English in 1824. ⁸ Smith's " A Dictionary of the Bible" [published in 1863] notes ⁹ that Wilhelm Gesenius punctuated YHWH as "יַהְוֶה".

Smith's 1863 " A Dictionary of the Bible" supposed that "יַהְוֶה" was represented by the "Iαβε" of Epiphanius and not by the "Iαου" of Clement of Alexandria.¹⁰

Smith's 1863 " A Dictionary of the Bible" states that Clement of Alexandria wrote "Iαου" and not "Iαουε" in Stromata Book v.¹¹

Smith's 1863 "A Dictionary of the Bible" does not consider "יַהְוֶה" to be the best scholarly reconstructed vowelized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton which it is aware of.

Although "יַהְוֶה" was not the only scholarly reconstructed vowelized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton that appeared in scholarly sources in the 19th century, it gradually became accepted as the best scholarly reconstructed vowelized Hebrew spelling of the Tetragrammaton.

The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906 recognizes that "יַהְוֶה" is spelled "Yahweh" in English, but "יַהְוֶה" is only one of two vowelized Hebrew spellings, that they believe might have been the original pronunciation of YHWH. "יַהְוֶה" is found in the online Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906, under the article: "NAMES OF GOD" and under the article sub heading: "YHWH".¹²

The Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Francis Brown and S.R. Driver and C.A. Briggs shows "יַהְוֶה" under the heading "יהוה", and describes "יַהְוֶה" as: "n.pr.dei Yahweh, the proper name of the God of Israel."

Tetragrammaton - Jewish use of the word

In Judaism, pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is a taboo; it is widely considered forbidden to utter it and the pronunciation of the name is generally avoided. Usually, HaShem is used as a substitute in prayers or readings from the Hebrew Bible. The difference is marked by the vowelization in printed Bibles—the Tetragrammaton takes on the vowels of the word it's to be pronounced as. Torah scrolls have no diacritical vowel marks, and therefore the reader must memorize the correct pronunciation for each instance of the Tetragrammaton (as for every word he reads).

According to Rabbinic tradition, the name was pronounced by the high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement as well as the only day when the Holy of Holies of the Temple would be entered. With the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70, this use also vanished, also explaining the loss of the correct pronunciation.

There is a Jewish tradition that the actual name of God, only known to and stated by the high priest, was actually 72 letters long. The name was written out on a long strip of parchment, then folded and slipped inside the fold of the high priest's bejeweled breastplate. When someone would ask the high priest a question of Torah, or Jewish law, the high priest could invoke the Name, wherein the 12 jewels, representing the 12 tribes of the Israelites, would light up in a certain order whose meaning was, too, only known to the high priest. Through the power of the 72-letter name of God, the high priest communed, as it were, with the Almighty.

Why 72 letters? The answer may be found in the medieval rabbinic use of Gematria, that is assigning a number to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, allowing scholars to attribute numeric sums to words, find equivalencies in certain words, even use sums to try to predict a year and date for the coming of the Messiah. Even today, Jews often attribute mystical significance to the number 18, which has a possible Hebrew letter equivalent in the word "Chai", meaning "Life". Using "Gematria", we find that "Chai" equals 18: it's composed of the letter "chet", which equals 8, and the letter "yod", which equals 10, i.e. 8+10=18; consequently 18x4=72, so, in a sense, each letter of the 4-letter form of the Name represents a metaphoric symbol of the living power of God. Also, when the letters of the Tetragrammaton are arranged in a Kabbalistic tetractys formation, the sum of all the letters is 72 by Gematria (as shown in the diagram). Keeping along these lines, the Tetragrammaton, since it's only an abbreviation of the actual name, is not as powerful by nature (or supernature) as the original full name of God, though it's still not something to use in vain.

When most religious Jews refer to the name of God in conversation or in a non-textual context such as in a book, newspaper or letter, they call the name HaShem, which means "the Name." Similarly, the word Elohim is prononuced "Elokim" outside of certain religious contexts when it refers to God, and likewise for a few other names of God. When any such word is used to refer to anything but God (e.g., HaShem), it is pronounced as normal by even the most traditionalist Jews.

A number of modern translations of the Hebrew Bible and of Jewish liturgy render the Tetragrammaton as "the ETERNAL" (emphasized or all caps), because it is gender-neutral (unlike "The Lord"). The Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton are the only ones required to write the Hebrew sentence "haya, hove, ve-yiheyeh" (He was, He is, and He shall be), hence "Eternal."

Tetragrammaton - Possible effect on the Hebrew Language

Other Semitic Languages, including Arabic and Ugaritic, use a vocative particle ya, roughly corresponding to English "O." Ya Allah = "O God!" The absence of this common vocative in Hebrew may perhaps be attributed to the taboo on pronouncing Yah - an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton.

Tetragrammaton - Alternative names

In an analogue to the euphemism HaShem for God, the euphemism HaShem HaMeforash (literally, the explicit name) is sometimes used to refer to the Tetragrammaton.

Another name, four-letter word, has lost its popularity for obvious reasons. Some people refer to the Tetragrammaton as Hebrew word #3068 [3] after the numbering in James Strong's concordance. See also The name of God in Judaism.

Tetragrammaton - Possible origins

A common suggestion, as articulated by biblical scholar Mark S. Smith in The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, is that the Israelite Yahweh was derived from the traditions of the Shasu, linguistically Canaanite nomads from southern transjordan. An Egyptian inscription from the Temple of Amun at Karnak from the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BCE) refers to the "Shasu of Yhw," evidence that this god was worshipped among some of the Shasu tribes at this time. Biblical archaeologist Amihai Mazar, in Archaeology of the Land of the Bible Volume I, suggests that the association of Yahweh with the desert may be the product of his origins in the dry lands to the south of Israel. Egyptologist Donald Redford, in Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, suggests that the Israelites themselves may have been a group of Shasu who moved northward into Canaan in the 13th century BCE, appearing for the first time in the stele of Merenptah, and as Israel Finkelstein has shown in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts settled the Samarian and Judean hills at this time.

Even Earlier there are signs that Yahweh was worshipped as Yah at Ebla (2,350 BCE) and as Yaw at Ugarit (1800-1200 BCE), where he was one of the Elohim (Canaanite 'lhm) - the sons of El. Jean Bottero in Mesopotamia:Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, suggests that Yah was the West Semitic version of the Akkadian God of Wisdom Ea, a name derived from the Sumerian E=house, A=water, a title given to the Sumerian God Enki. Yah and Ea were pronounced alike. Yahweh, like Ea was the creator of humankind, who saved the flood hero (Noah / Utnapishtim) from the flood.

Tetragrammaton - Popular culture

• A crucified Jesus below a radiant Tetragrammaton is found in the church of St. Marri at Paris, near the Centre Pompidou.

• In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones must cross a room of lettered tiles. To step on the wrong letter would trigger a deadly trap. An ancient Latin manuscript provides a clue to safe passage: he must walk in a sequence that will spell out "the name of God." He remembers not a moment too soon that "in the Latin alphabet, 'Jehovah' begins with an 'I.'"
• In Equilibrium, a dystopic view of the future in which the government mandates that all individuals take psychiatric medications to suppress feeling, the agency responsible for policing the state is known as the Tetragrammaton.
• In Pi, a group of kabbalistic Jews looking for the true name of God enlist the help of a mathematician to analyze the Torah.
• In Monty Python's Life of Brian, a man is persecuted for saying out loud the name of God ("I only said that this meal was fit for Jehovah!"). The accuser then accidentally lets this "blasphemy" slip out and is himself stoned.
• In Bruce Almighty, Yahweh! is the name given to Bruce's computerized tool for sorting prayers to answer, parodying popular search engine Yahoo!

• The Tetragrammaton features extensively in Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, and in short stories such as "Death and the Compass" by Jorge Luis Borges.
• In Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe, the "real" pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is rendered as "Yahu-Wahu". (The "evidence" for this is that the cartoon character representing the author is struck by lightning while speculating whether the original pronunciation of YHWH is "Yehowah [Jehovah], Yahweh, or even Yahu-Wahu". Later in the book, Israelites are shown attacking a Canaanite city while uttering the war cry "Yahoo! Wahoo!").
• In Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, a sort of alternate history in which magic and religion have objective reality and scientific status, the Tetragrammaton is used as the insignia of United States Army Intelligence units.
• In the book All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams, the dark magician Simon the Clerk uses an ultra-powerful spell of destruction or dissolution called the Anti-Tetragrammaton.

• Yahweh is the closing track on U2's 2004 album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.
• A Mexican idea of what 'Yahweh' means: "Yo soy quien soy y no me parezco a nadie" = "I am who am I and I do not look like anybody" (from a popular song).
• ApologetiX, a Christian parody band, wrote a parody of YMCA entitled YHWH

• A popular RPG series in Japan by Atlus called Shin Megami Tensei features a representation of YHVH in its Super Nintendo games Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei II.
• In the cult-classic RPG Xenogears the game's main villain, the false god "Deus," is an extremely powerful biological weapon which is the key part to the "Yaweh" planetary invasion system.
• The entity Jenova's name in Final Fantasy VII is derived from Jehova. Her name is said to be a portmanteau of Jehova and nova literaly meaning "New God", which is exactly what she and her "son" Sephiroth are trying to become in the game.

See also

Other articles relating to the Tetragrammaton:

• Adonai
• Ancient of Days
• -ihah
• Jah
• Jehovah
• El (god)
• Elohim
• I am that I am
• INRI

Other:

• iaoue — the story of one Greek transliteration of the Tetragrammaton.
• Names of God in Judaism

Tetragrammaton - Footnotes

1. Galatin, Peter - De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis, 1518, folio xliii
2. See pages 128 and 236 of the book "Who Were the Early Israelites?" by archeologist William G. Dever, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003.
3. “ιαουε” is pronounced ee-ah-oo-eh
4. Gerard Gertoux explains to JW BERT why JHW-H must be vocalized Yeho-ah or Yehou-ah.
5. Encyclopedia Britannica 1910-11 states that “Iaou” not “Iaoue” is found at Strom V. 6 in the 11th century Codex L. (i.e. Codex Laurentianus V 3)
6. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910- sub-heading : “To take up the ancient writers”.
7. Wilhelm Gesenius is noted for being one of the greatest Hebrew and biblical scholars.
8. Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament was first translated into English in 1824,
9. Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible"
10. Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible": Yahweh supposed to have been derived from "IaBe"
11. Smith's "A Dictionary of the Bible": Clement of Alexandria wrote "Iaou" not "Iaoue" at Stromata Book V.
12. The online Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Tetragrammaton", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki