Decline of use of the Tetragrammaton within Old Testament literature

Canada
September 10, 2016 3:38pm CST
This sprung from a conversation the other day and a question someone asked me-when did Christians stop using the Tetragrammaton, or Old Testament term for God, Yahweh? I said the reality is that they probably never used it, and aside from certain notes within early Christian writers on the term (from which, btw, we know it's approximate pronunciation-Yahweh) we don't see any manuscript evidence to support such a view of it being used in common, but also because usage of other terms had long before become normalized. Within the Old Testament for example, in later books, we see the Tetragrammaton being used less and less-and in the Aramaic sections we do not see it used at all. And this is the backdrop which the Christian community inherited-the first Christians were Jews, coming from a Jewish background. It's not that they stopped using it at a certain point in time-it's that it's use had already declined before the Old Testament had finished being written. The truth is, as I said before, we have no New Testament manuscripts written in Greek in which the Name occurs-some people don't like that fact, but it is a fact. But rather we see that the Name of God, is identified with the Nature of God-and interestingly enough, we see this Identification with the Logos or Word of God. If you are curious, you will see a slight theological glimmer of this within books such as the Gospel according to John, which identifies the Logos with Jesus, and Jesus speaks of Himself making known the Father's Name to His disciples-and He speaks of this in parallel terms of equating knowing the Son with knowing the Father. Not "knowing what the Father is like", but actually knowing and experiencing Him. Jesus also speaks of the Father's Name as one which the Father had also given Him-again, John's Gospel. The truth is, despite what certain groups now say, as if it were a conspiracy...is just not historically accurate.
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3 responses
@Drosophila (16571)
• Ireland
10 Sep 16
I always wondered how would one interprete "and the word was God", if Jesus was considered as an angel only
1 person likes this
• Canada
10 Sep 16
Certain groups argue that since the article is lacking with the term theos that it should be rendered "a" god, because Greek lacks an indefinate article-given the context of John, how he begins with this assertion, and ends with Thomas confession "My Lord and my God", the "I am" statements which are a major theme within John, and identifying Jesus with the experience of the Father, and how John even within chapter 1 frequently drops the article (ie, it is his usage), I think this is unlikely...so did the early Christians...hence the Historical understanding of what the early Christians called "the economy of Salvation"-that is, the Trinity.
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@Drosophila (16571)
• Ireland
11 Sep 16
@HebrewGreekStudies I think try to render the term "a god".. means that some groups believe that Jesus is "a god" but not "The God", surely that's kinda against the law, that there is no other gods, other than 1 God. Also thou shalt believe one God, and one only. So by asserting Jesus was "a god" separate from "The God", surely that's believing there's more God than 1.
1 person likes this
• Canada
12 Sep 16
@Drosophila yes, and that is a theological difficulty for such groups-and contextually since John's Gospel speaks of the Logos in a creative role, and in the OT Yahweh says that He alone created the universe with no helper, it again is theologically problematic...I think the role of the Logos in creation would contextually delegate this to that of God in a definite sense-and the Logos, by definition of being the Logos of God, ties the Logos into the Life of God in an inseperable manner-in the Old Testament, Yahweh, the Word of Yahweh and the Spirit of Yahweh are inseperably linked-and the early Christians, very very early ones such as Justin Martyr, stated this very thing. It is akin to the common claim of certain groups that the Church Fathers did not teach the Trinity-then they are shown otherwise, that yes they did and the term is much older then they say, and then making the bold statement in reply "when the early Christians talked about the Trinity, they didn't mean the Trinity"-it makes my eyes go kinda cross at trying to figure out that kinda logic...in reality, it is the indoctrination that they claim other groups give...
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@puddleglum (1380)
• United States
11 Sep 16
This explanation makes sense to me. While we're on the subject of divine names, how did the Hebrew texts make the distinction between the name "El" as referring to the one God of Israel, and "el" as referring to a general deity? I remember studying about it some in an Ancient Israel culture class back in college, but I'm afraid I've slept since then. I always think about this issue when I read the Genesis 33 passage in which Jacob builds an altar called, El-elohe-Israel.
1 person likes this
• Canada
11 Sep 16
Re. El, and it's other forms, Elohim, Eloah, and in Aramaic sections Elah (yes, the Arabic Allah is related to it), it depends on context (again, as in Arabic). For example in Psalm 46 "Be still and know that I am Elohim", or Psalm 48:9, since this is to be understood as Vocative form, ie the writer is directly addressing God, it is by definition to be understood in that sense-ie this God, not those gods. To be sure, the Tetragrammaton did have distinctive meaning relating to Israel's god alone, but since the Name had ceased to be spoken in regular usage and the substitutes Adonai and Elohim had replaced it in the Qere (reading out loud), they became associated with it-that is to say, even if one read Adonai or Elohim in the reading of the text, it was still understood as referring to the Ketiv (written) Yahweh. Your pointing out of Gen. 33 and the name of the altar by El, and Yisra'EL is something most scholars identify, that the name the Patriarchs used was that of El, not Yahweh, and explains the statement God makes to Moses in Ex. 6 that He was known to the Patriarchs as El Shaddai, but by His name Yahweh He was not known to them-the term El did have ancient usage, and here the writer is identifying the 2. This does not however negate the Patriarchs having zero knowledge of the Name, but it does refer to a kind of specification which would be revealed in the Exodus which was not known to them.
1 person likes this
• United States
11 Sep 16
@HebrewGreekStudies Thank you for elucidating that. This name discussion is an interesting one for many reasons, but it particularly serves as a reminder that Israel's story, identity, and understanding of the true God were all part of a fluid journey--not a static moment or place in time.
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@Tampa_girl7 (50541)
• United States
10 Apr 17
I have been to a few churches in recent years that refer to him as Yahweh.
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