Talk:Yahweh

use in Bible translations

The spelling Jahweh or Yahweh as a scholarly reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew dates to the 19th century (or perhaps the late 18th, but I found no evidence of that).

The use of Yahweh in Bible translations seems to originate with the REB of 1902. For the further history of this during the 20th century, I relied on w:Sacred_Name_Bibles#List_of_Sacred_Name_Bibles (not my compilation). According to this, the next Bible to use "Yahweh" was "The New Testament(!) of our Messiah and Saviour Yahshua" of 1950. I would be interested in any evidence of such use between 1902 and 1950. The 1950s onward history of this is closely tied to the "Sacred Name Movement" in US Adventism. But there seem to be exceptions. I think the Catholic Church briefly considered endorsing "Yahweh" but the again gave it up. This seems to be connected with the New Jerusalem Bible of 1985. This should be documented more clearly. Apart from this 1980s quirk, I do not think anyone outside of US Adventism has used "Yahweh" in Bible translations over the past half century. --Dbachmann 12:38, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

ah, here is an article about the Catholic thing I seemed to remember, Holy See Stops Use of 'Yahweh' in Catholic Worship. It seems that after Catholic scholars produced a "politically correct" Bible translation in 1985, the NJB (where "New" modifies "Bible", not "Jerusalem":)), the practice of pronouncing Yahweh had "crept into" Catholic service. The Vatican in 2001 published a document Liturgiam Authenticam, which said that this would not do. Since the practice still continued, the Vatican in 2008 published another statement asking would everyone please stop saying "Yahweh" in Catholic service. --Dbachmann 12:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

18th century use of "Jahweh"?

Note that this google books hit apparently dating use of "Jahweh" to 1709 is an artefact. The actual title page of 1709 uses the Hebrew letters YHWH[1], and "Jahweh" is just a modern librarians' transcription of that. --Dbachmann 12:58, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding early 19th century usage, this may be evidence from 1829 (but needs verification if it is really the 1st edition of the Encyclopedia Americana). Here is evidence of Jahweh in German text in 1833.

This is dated wrongly by google books (happens often), it's not an 1834 attestation, but (I think) an 1936 one. --Dbachmann 13:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Google books can often be used to push back the earliest attestation cited by OED by a couple of years. In this case, I find an 1863 occurrence. But I doubt we can push this back further than to the 1850s at best. --Dbachmann 13:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The 1863 reference is actually a sarcastic quote of a publication of January 1860; see my edits to lemma. Since John Thomas became active in 1847, it may be possible to catch him using Yahweh as early as that. --Dbachmann 13:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I found Jahwoh in a 1712 reference! [2]

It appears that the authenticity of "Jehova" began to be questioned from as early as 1700, but the reconstruction tended towards the vocalization Jahwoh at first. This was apparently revised to the current vocalization Jahweh in the 1840s. --Dbachmann 09:47, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

YHWH is a Semitic transcription the W represent the oriental WAW which is longer and stronger than the Latin W and must be pronounced YAHOOWEH meaning : THAT HIM or THAT ONE , god of their ancestors ... It is not a name of Moses God , but a reference to himself . He was dictating to Moses what Moses had to report and Moses , as messenger, had to speak in the tird person tence , so that ONE , God of your ancestors have send me... Elias Bouez - Lebanon