Should I Use The True Name Of God?

Subtitle: Some denominations make claim that Christians must use the “real” name of God and/or Jesus. These groups are often referred to as “Sacred Name” sects. Some even say we can lose our salvation if we are taught the true name and do not use it.

Synopsis:

For several different reasons it is nearly impossible to know the exact pronunciation of God’s name. Those that teach that we must correctly pronounce the name of God (or that they even know how to pronounce it) do not understand the nature of languages and ignore easily researched history. Not only is there no place in the Bible where we are told that we must use a specific name, but scripture is full of different names and titles for both God and Jesus. To support this teaching many of these sects make the claim the Bible has been corrupted to ensure only a few know the true name.

Key Takeways:

Pronunciation of words change dramatically over the years and can vary significantly from one geographical region to the next. That makes knowing how to correctly pronounce ancient words impossible.
No one knows how words were pronounced in ancient Hebrew.
Hebrew writing does not include vowels, so we can only make educated guesses at the correct vowels in certain words.
This teaching did not exist before the early 20^th century.
There are a great deal of provable historical facts that must be ignored to make this claim.
Nowhere are we told in scripture that we must use specific names for God or Jesus.

The Deep Details For Those That Want To Know:

In the early 20^th Century teachings began to appear that were concerned with the true name of God (and in some cases, the name of Jesus). At first these teachings were not widespread, but in some religious groups they became a major focus of doctrine. For some sects, this new idea became so important that they believed a person’s salvation may have depended on the correct pronunciation of God’s name, or at least the use of a certain name. This belief is often referred to as the “Sacred Name” movement. As of today there are several religious groups that all teach various forms of the Sacred Name doctrine, but they do not agree on all points of theology, and in many cases they do not even agree on the correct pronunciation of God’s name. Ironically, the disagreements among those that teach Sacred Name doctrines really underscore the three major problems with trying to make using a specific name for God a part Christian theology.

Problem 1

Another article on this site (Doctrinal Dangers), points out that most teaching errors usually fall into one of four categories. When it comes to Sacred Name teachings, what is obvious is that it falls into the category of “teachings about having secret knowledge and authority”. The Sacred Name teacher claims to know the real name of God and therefore has some special authority because of it. Very often the Sacred Name doctrine is then used as proof that some other unusual doctrine put forth by the teacher is also true as well because the teacher has this special authority. In other words, since the teacher knows the real name of God (when few others supposedly do), they must have special knowledge in other areas as well. Because of this the Sacred Name doctrine is often used as a tag-team teaching to support other errors.

Of course this creates a theological conflict among Sacred Name teachers: If Teacher A knows the supposed real nameof Godand it is different from the real name argued by Teacher B, then they cannot both be correct. The authority obtained through knowing the name of God is dependent on having exclusive, secret knowledge that no one else knows.

Problem 2

There is no doubt that languages evolve over time. Pronunciations change from one geographical region to the next, and native speakers of one language will use different phonetic sounds for a letter that is pronounced a different way in another language. For example a Spanish speaker is more likely to pronounce the letter “i” in a way that an English speaker would pronounce a long “e”. Ship may sound like sheep.

Typically, theologians are not linguists and they may know little or nothing about how changes in writing, spoken languages, or translation can effect what we can know about correct pronunciation. For example, few people are aware of the Great Vowel Shift that occurred in the English language between the 15^th and 18^th centuries. English speakers do not pronounce many vowels in the same way they were pronounced 500 years ago. These kinds of shifts are common among languages, but they are rarely noticed historically since it is the sound of the spoken word that changes, not the written language. We have no way of knowing what changes in pronunciation have occurred over thousands of years. Simply put, no one knows how ancient Hebrew words were pronounced during the time of the Exodus or how they might have changed over the centuries. To further complicate matters, we have no way of knowing how other factors may have effected pronunciations. For example, since he was raised in the Pharaoh’s household, did Moses speak Hebrew with an Egyptian accent? While asking a question like that may seem a little unimportant, it could definitely matter to a doctrine that insists that correct pronunciation of God’s name is important.

Problem 3

There is a third major problem with many Sacred Name teachings, especially those that insist true believers are required to use the correct name of God. Without even realizing it, Sacred Name followers fall into the same centuries old argument about whether we are saved by faith or by works. The mandate to pronounce God’s name a specific way becomes another addition to the long list of extra salvation requirements that have been proclaimed by one group or another over the years. These include the debate found in Acts 15 over requiring gentile converts to be circumcised, the denominational battles over if/when/how a person should be baptized, and a host of other doctrines that people have attempted to add as requirements for salvation.

While there are many verses that make what God requires from us abundantly clear, Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us exactly what, how, and why:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.(Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

Not only does this verse NOT mention that we must use a specific name of God for salvation, but any group claiming to know and use the correct name of God is making the boast that they have special knowledge that earns them salvation.

Speaking the Name of God

This next section may be difficult to follow, but it explains how we have arrived at what we think is God’s name. If it is not clear, the important thing to come away with is just how complex all of this is and to understand that it may be impossible for us to be certain of the actual pronunciation of God’s name as He revealed it to Moses.

The Tetragrammaton is the word used to refer to the name of God as it appears in the Hebrew Bible. This has been transliterated as YHWH or YHVH using the Roman letters that are assumed to be closest to the original Hebrew. What s important to note here is that Hebrew script did not include vowels, so the four letters in the Tetragrammaton are only the consonants in the name. Our first known use of the name YHWH is by God Himself in Exodus 3:14:

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I amhas sent me to you.’”

In this verse God calls Himself ‘ehyeh asher ‘ehyeh (I AM THAT I AM) and ‘ehyeh (I AM). The word ‘ehyeh looks nothing like YHWH to the eyes of an English speaking person. This is because ‘ehyeh is a “first person” form of the verb hayah, which means “to be”. This will be made a little more clear when we are introduced to the “third person” form of God’s name in the next verse in Exodus 3:15 ( where “I am” becomes “He is”).

15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

In other words, YHWH in verse 15 is hayah (HE IS) instead of ‘ehyeh (I AM) found in verse 14. An English comparison of making the switch from first person to third person would be “I go to the store.” and “She goes to the store.”

How does hayah become YHWH?

Now that we have gotten to hayah (HE IS) more explanation is needed. The next bit of information we need is that Hebrew has different pronunciations for forms of a word that are referring to either a male or female. In this case, the third person, masculine form of hayah becomes yihyeh. An additional note is that in written Hebrew, the letters used for “y” and “w” are often interchangeable. If we remove the vowels and replace the second “y” with a “w” we end up with yhwh. Now we are close to YHWH- at least as it is written. Even though we have done all of this work to arrive at how God’s name is written, none of this addresses how YHWH should be pronounced.

Our Best Efforts at Pronouncing the Name of God.

Through linguistic evidence and some later writings on the correct pronunciation, scholars are in agreement that our best effort is to pronounce God’s name as Yahweh, but there are subtle vocalizations that we may still be missing since we do not know the specifics of the ancient Hebrew language. An example of this can be heard in the English language when comparing the differences between the soft “a” sound and the soft “e” sound in the words bad and bed. The difference in pronunciation of these two words is mostly made by a slight change in position of the back of the tongue, but there can be other differences as well, depending on the speaker. One person my slightly drop their lower jaw a little more open when saying bad and another my slightly widen their mouth when saying bed. None of these linguistic details have been passed down through the eons to us concerning the ancient Hebrew language, so we can only give our best educated guess as to the pronunciation of the name.

The thing to understand about all of this is that knowing the exact pronunciation is nearly impossible.

When Did We Stop Using the Name of God?

Around the 3^rd century BC, Jews largely stopped pronouncing or writing the name of God. It is thought that this was due to a growing reverence for the name. Instead Hebrew scripes substituted other words like Adoni (the Hebrew word for Lord ) and Elohim (the Hebrew word for God) in their writing as a sign of respect. This practice was well in place by the time the New Testament was written and has carried over into modern Bible translations where we often see LORD or [LORD] substituted in scriptures where YHWH was originally written.

It is believed that the practice of not writing or pronouncing God’s name came from the commandment to “not take the name of YHWH in vain”. Due to this, in later Jewish periods the name was only spoken by the High Priest in the Temple on the Day of Atonement- which was only once a year. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD the actual vocalization and pronunciation of the name was all but lost.

Some will claim that the correct pronunciation can be found in the ancient writings of early Christians, but these rely on only two authors (Theodoret and Epiphanius ). The works of both of these authors were written almost 400 years after Jesus was crucified, which means the pronunciations may have already changed over the centuries by their time. Another serious issue with their attempts at determining the correct pronunciation of God’s name is that the opinions of both authors are based on Samaritan pronunciations. The big problem with this is we know that there were differences in pronunciation of words between Samaria and Judea (for example the “w” in Judaic Hebrew is pronounced as a “b” in Samaritan Hebrew). There are other examples of this as well. In fact, the pronunciation differences between the different tribes in Israel is highlighted in the Bible in Judges 12:4-6.

We also know that the Jews (particularly Jewish religious scholars) considered Samaritan worship practices as corrupted and the validity of their religious traditions were disputed. To complicate things further, Theodoret and Epiphanius were translating the name they heard from Samaritans into Greek which does not have a consonant “y” or mid-word “h”, so they translated the name they heard as Iabe. Since we know the consonants were incorrect (both in pronunciation and what the Greek listeners thought they were hearing), the validity of the two vowel sounds are also highly suspect.

Another writer, Clement of Alexandria (c. 180 AD) is credited with writing, “Further, the mystic name of the four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called “Iaoue,” which is interpreted, “Who is and shall be.”

Again we see the problem in translation by a Greek speaker. There is no letter “y” in Greek so they substituted the letter “i”. And “ou” would be the sound a Greek speaker would hear for the “w” sound, which is why the Greek spelling of the name Jesus is “Iesous” (the English “j” sound in the name Jesus and Jehovah would be a later development that we will cover further in this article).

In the end, the take way here is that we have conflicting pronunciations from the three earliest sources.

The Origins of Sacred Name Teachings

The roots of the Sacred Name teachings can be traced back to several key figures in the early 20^th Century and it appears to come from the Seventh Day movement which practices keeping the seventh day of the week (Saturday) as the Sabbath. Two major influences in this movement were Joseph Franklin Rutherford and C.O. Dodd.

Joseph Franklin Rutherford- In the January 1, 1926 Joseph Franklin Rutherford (of the Bible Study movement) published an article entitled “Who Will Honor Jehovah?” in the Watchtower magazine. In this article, Rutherford placed special emphasis on the name Jehovah as the correct pronunciation for the name of God. Rutherford later changed the name of the Bible Study movement to Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931. Rutherford was a significant contributor to the doctrines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses until his death in 1942.

C.O. Dodd- C.O. Dodd adopted sacred name doctrines in the 1930s and began publishing The Faith magazine in 1937. The Faith is known as the first Sacred Name magazine. It should be noted that in the beginning Dodd used Jehovah as the correct name of God, but after further study began using the name Yahweh in his magazine.

A disciple of Dodd, named Angelo Traina, produced a Sacred Name edition of the Bible based on the King James Version in which the names of God and Jesus were changed. God to Elohim, LORD to Yahweh and Jesus to Yashua.

From these sprang several denominations that follow sacred name teachings.

What About Jehovah?

Another twist in the history of the Sacred Name teachings is the claim that Jehovah is the correct pronunciation instead of Yahweh. Again, we must turn to the history of languages to understand how Sacred Name teachers came to that conclusion. We have already covered that “y” and “w’” are often interchangeable in written Hebrew, but the use of the letter “J” requires some explaining.

During the middle ages, the letter modern-day English speakers recognize as “J” did not exist. It was added later. The addition came from an Italian scholar by the name of Gian Giorgio Trissino around 1524. The curve on the “J” was added to the letter “I” in Latin to indicate the “yuh” sound (similar to the sound of the letter “y” in English). This was particularly important for the pronunciation of the name Jesus, since in Latin it was spelled Iesus (pronounced yeh-SOOS), Although an “I” followed by a vowel was generally thought to make the “yuh” sound in Latin, the new letter “J” made it easier to recognize. Eventually this carried over to English and the 1629 edition of the King James Bible used the “J” to help readers better pronounce the name of Jesus with the “Y” sound (the 1611 edition of the KJV still used “I”). Over the centuries the pronunciation of the letter “J” changed for English speakers. The “Y” sounding “J” began to be pronounced like the “J” in jug due to language influences from Norman French. Unfortunately, Sacred Name teachers were unaware of all of this historical fact, and they thought the “J” sound English speakers use today was the correct pronunciation.

Even today, some some Sacred name teachers will argue against these historical facts. One example argument is Why would they add the letter “J” to the King James Bible when “Y” already existed? It is true that the letter “Y” did exist, but the answer is because the letter “Y” was used for the “th” sound when printing presses were introduced in England (which is why signs that say “ye olde shop” should be pronounced “the old shop”). There are other arguments similar to this, but they are quickly refuted by looking at the pronunciations of the letter “J” in other Germanic languages (English is a Germanic language). Examples would be the Dutch pronunciation of Johan, which is “YOH-ahn”. The reason that other languages in Europe kept the original “Y” sound for the letter “J” is because their countries were not invaded by the Normans and their spoken language did not evolve- at least not the letter “J”.

In the end, this is only more evidence that languages change over time.

Sacred Name Ideas from the Bible

Some Sacred Name teachings can be traced back to interpretations of scripture that are based on the ancient use of the phrase “in the name of” and similar wording. “In the name of” is an idiom that means acting on behalf of someone or something. It also implies authority. For example, the same idiom is used today when someone says, “Open, in the name of the Law.” In the ancient world the usage of this idiom was very common. To better understand how reinterpreting scripture in an overly literal way and not being aware of the historical idiom can create problems, we will look at some specific verses.

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12 ESV)

5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 19:5 ESV)

13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. (John 14:13-14 ESV)

17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17 ESV)

10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11 ESV)

8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:8 ESV)

With these examples it can be easy to see how ignoring what is meant by the phrase “in the name of ..”, can bring about a serious misinterpretation. Instead of whatever you ask in my name (authority), or do everything in the name of … (authority), if we use a very literal interpretation to mean that the actual name of Jesus or God must be invoked, we see that the Gospel is dramatically changed.

Acts 4:12 would be seen to mean that faith in Christ is no longer sufficient for salvation, but the appropriate name of Jesus would also need to be used. Philippians 2:10-11 would mean that mentioning the name of Jesus would make all people bow. And Psalm 124:8 would mean that any help from God would come from using His name, not from praying to him.

Not only is this logic flawed, but it is in direct opposition of what the Bible teaches. Salvation is a gift, not earned by using using a specific name for God like a magic spell. God’s grace is available to all believers, not to the few who happen to sit under a specific teacher who claims to have the correct pronunciation of the four Hebrew letters found in the Tetragrammaton.

Some Sacred Name doctrines are even more disconcerting in what they teach. For example, some believe that while it is possible for a person to be saved without knowing God’s true name, once that person becomes aware of Sacred Name teachings, they are held accountable for using the proper name from that day forward. In other words, if you have always referred to the Creator as God or Lord and someone tells you that His proper name is Yahweh, these teachers claim you can even lose your salvation if you do not use that name from that moment on.

If We Must Use The Name, Then Why Is It Missing From the New Testament? Why Are there No Teachings On It?

If the need to use the properly pronounced name is that important, why are there no instructions on it in the Bible? Wouldn’t any of the apostles or even Jesus himself have taught on how important it is? Why would God allow the correct pronunciation to be lost if a right relationship with Him depends on it? Wouldn’t the Bible itself be in error with all of the other names it gives for God and Jesus? Wouldn’t Jesus Himself be guilty of falling short when he says, “Abba, Father”?

There are also places in scripture where Jesus directly quotes the Old Testament and uses the word “Lord” because that word is used in the verses He is quoting. Here are two of many examples:

Here Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16.

7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written,‘ You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:7 ESV)

Here Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4.

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:29-30 ESV)

In both of these quotes, every instance of “Lord” is the Greek word “Kyrios”, not the name YHWH.

Against such evidence, Sacred Name teachers will often argue that the reason these Biblical paradoxes exist (paradoxes in their teachings) is because the scripture has become corrupted and that the Tetragrammaton has been replaced with other words like “Lord” throughout our Bible. But this attempt at defending Sacred Name teachings sets up an even greater problem and mischaracterizes God. If scripture has been corrupted in the way these teachers claim it must mean that:

God is incapable of protecting His word and making certain the Bible says what He wants it to say.
God is indifferent to His word and does not consider it important enough to preserve its accuracy
God is complicit in allowing us to be misled.

All of these possible reasons are very disturbing, but the last is beyond imagining because it would mean we could not trust anything that came from God and that we can expect Him to mislead us intentionally. Those that teach Sacred Name doctrine do not see the implications of their claims.

Turning back to the verses in Matthew and Mark where Jesus directly quotes Deuteronomy we can see that any claim that these verses have been corrupted create another logical problem. In both examples, the quotes from Jesus align directly with the Septuagint, which is a version of the scriptures translated into Greek about 300 years before He quotes them in Matthew and Mark. If both Matthew and Mark have Jesus quoting directly from the corrupted Septuagint, that means either Jesus was in error or both Matthew and Mark are not telling the truth.

But there is an alternative answer- neither Jesus Himself, nor Matthew and Mark subscribed to the Sacred Name doctrine as it is taught today.

While it is true that in many copies of scripture Jewish scribes were substituting other names for the Tetragrammaton for reasons given earlier in this section, direct quotes from Jesus seem to indicate that He saw no disrespect in using the phrases “the Lord your God” or “the Lord our God”, instead of Yahweh. It could be argued that both Matthew and Mark were copying from the Septuagint and not directly quoting Jesus’s references to Deuteronomy, but you will often find a different argument among Sacred Name teachers. They will say that the Gospels were originally correct, but later versions of Matthew and Mark were rewritten so that the quotes of Jesus aligned with the Septuagint. That is very unlikely since we have copies of both of those books from very early on. To rewrite them, someone would need to destroy all of the copies of the Gospels that had been distributed across the world before the first two centuries and replace them with forgeries. This would certainly need to include ancient fragments that have remained undiscovered in deserts until modern times.

Conclusion

None of this is to say there is anything wrong about giving your best attempt at pronouncing the names of God or Jesus. What is indicated here are two main considerations:

It would be difficult, if not impossible to know how to pronounces those names perfectly.
There is no instruction found in scripture on how to pronounce the names, nor is there any place in the Bible where we are told that it is critically important that we do so.

Sacred Name teachings often try to reinterpret scripture or take verses out of context in an effort to support their claims. These errors become obvious when careful Biblical study is applied. Some will even argue that verses like Proverbs 30:4 prove that the names of God and the Messiah are required for salvation.

“Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?” (Proverbs 30:4 KJV)

While there is significant evidence against these kinds of teachings, the thing that stands in opposition to them most is what the Bible says about God. Does the Bible describe a God that is loving and cares for His followers or does the Bible describe a God would allow his followers to be tricked out of the grace and salvation He has provided.

References

The links below are provided as references and resources for additional study. We do not have any affiliation with these Websites or the organizations that publish them. We do not necessarily agree or disagree with anything on the sites or endorse any of the information found at the links. The links are for additional research on the part of the reader and are based on supporting sources that could be verified through an Internet search. Which links the search produced was more due to ease and dependability of access than church or denominational association.