Jehovah or Yahweh? Is Jesus separate from Jehovah? What should we believe about a person's soul?

TL;DR:
This page continues an email dialogue with a Jehovah’s Witness, addressing three theological questions: whether “Yahweh” more closely represents the ancient pronunciation of YHWH than “Jehovah,” whether the human soul survives physical death, and whether calling Jesus “Lord” identifies Him with Yahweh.

7. Responses to Jehovah's Witnesses

"Then [Jesus] opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures." — Luke 24:45

Excerpts from an email exchange I had with a Jehovah's Witness

Jehovah's Witness question: What proof do you have that the name Jehovah is the wrong pronunciation of the Hebrew word?
My answer: That's a good question. It's an important one because I know that using God's "proper name" is so very important to Jehovah's Witnesses. Using the right name for someone is very important. For instance, my name is Howard. Once in a while, someone will call me Harold. Then, when they discover what they've done, they'll be very apologetic because they have called me by the wrong name (although the name they used has five of its six letters in common with mine). Even though Harold is very close to Howard, it is not my name.

As to the issue of how to pronounce this particular name for God, ancient Hebrew writing generally did not represent vowels with separate letters or vowel points. That makes it difficult to know with certainty how some words were pronounced. For example, if English words were written using consonants alone, the letters “RM” would not tell us whether the intended word was “Rome,” “room,” “ram,” or “rim.” So, in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Bible books, we have those four Hebrew consonants that we transliterate into English as YHWH. When Jewish scholars added what we call vowel “points” to the Hebrew text during the early Middle Ages, they placed vowel markings associated with Adonai (Lord) around YHWH, primarily to remind readers to say Adonai rather than pronounce the divine name. The Latin form later represented in English as “Jehovah” arose by combining the consonants of YHWH with vowel signs associated with Adonai. Petrus Galatinus helped popularize such a form in the sixteenth century. In its development into the English form “Jehovah,” the initial Hebrew yod came to be represented by a J, and the Hebrew letter waw by a v.

However, modern Hebrew scholars point to ancient Greek transcriptions and writings in which YHWH was rendered variously as Iabe, Iaoue, and Iaouai. Iaoue, for instance, appears in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, who died about AD 215. This lends weight to the conclusion that those four Hebrew letters were originally pronounced as Yahweh rather than Jehovah.

Thus, the traditional form “Jehovah” reflects the consonants of YHWH combined with vowel markings that reminded Jewish readers to say “Lord.” When you say “Jehovah,” therefore, the form itself contains an echo of “Lord.” Does that complicate your belief that the Lord Jesus is not Yahweh?

Now, in terms of the proof you asked for: Have you read the introductory material in the Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures published by the Watchtower Society? On page 23 of the 1969 edition, it says: "While inclining to view the pronunciation 'Yahweh' as the more correct way, we have retained the form 'Jehovah' because of people's familiarity with it since the 14th century."

Isn't that like saying, “Since we have used this traditional pronunciation for a long time, we may as well continue using it”?

Or, what about another Watchtower publication, Aid to Bible Understanding, which says on page 885 of its 1971 edition that Yahweh is "the most likely pronunciation" of the Hebrew letters YHWH? Could those two quotations serve as proof for you?

If Jehovah's Witness leaders were saying more than 50 years ago that “Yahweh” is the more likely pronunciation, why does the organization continue using the traditional form “Jehovah” rather than the pronunciation it acknowledges as more likely? 🙂 [ 600 names and titles for God in the Bible ]
Jehovah's Witness question: Do you know what the Scriptures say about the soul?
My answer: A good place to start is with the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:28: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." Wouldn't you agree that Jesus was very precise in the way He spoke? His speech was not sloppy; every word was powerful. So, wouldn't the distinction Jesus makes between the death of our physical body and our spiritual soul indicate the soul is something different from the body?

Or, what about the account of the death of Stephen in Acts 7:59? Just before he died, didn't Stephen pray to Jesus to "receive my spirit"? Doesn't this indicate that Stephen believed his spirit or soul was going to live on beyond his bodily existence? If Stephen's soul or spirit was about to cease to exist when his body died, how could Jesus, who was in heaven, receive Stephen's spirit? Was Stephen mistaken? If what Stephen was praying for wasn't going to happen, why would the Holy Spirit inspire the writer of Acts to include a statement that appears inconsistent with that teaching?

In his second letter to the Corinthians, doesn't Paul say that he would prefer to be “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8)? Doesn't that indicate that Paul believed one's soul or spirit continued to exist after bodily death? Was Paul mistaken in thinking he could be “away from the body”?

When Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, he said he would rather depart from this life so that he could go be with Christ (Philippians 1:23). How could Paul be "with Christ" and make his "home with the Lord" if — as the Jehovah's Witnesses teach — no one could enter heaven until 1914?

Similarly, if the soul is the body, why does Paul distinguish among "spirit, soul and body" in 1 Thessalonians 5:23?

Why does Isaiah’s poetic portrayal of the king of Babylon describe Sheol as being stirred to greet him, with its inhabitants responding to and observing his arrival (Isaiah 14:9–16)?

If the soul has no existence apart from the body, how could Moses and Elijah appear to Peter, James, and John and actually converse with Jesus (Matthew 17:3)?

If the soul dies when the body dies, how could the “souls” in Revelation 6:9–11—those who had been “slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained”—call out “in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord ...?’”

Why do some biblical accounts describe a person’s life or spirit as departing at death or returning when life is restored (Genesis 35:18; 1 Kings 17:21)? Similarly, how should we understand Jesus’ warning that, after the body is killed, a person may still be thrown into Gehenna (Luke 12:4–5)?

Do not misunderstand what I'm saying about the soul. I don't think human beings "have" a soul like they "have" a bicycle or a dress. Human beings "are" souls. The soul—our personhood—is what I understand Scripture to indicate continues beyond the physical death of the body.
Jehovah's Witness question: Do you accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord? If so, that means you are saying He is separate from Jehovah.
My answer: Do I accept Jesus as Lord and Savior? Yes, I do, and because of that, I have had to acknowledge Him as Yahweh. For believers, as Paul said, there is only "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5).

In that verse, Paul is repeating what Zechariah said: "On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name" — Zechariah 14:9

Since English Old Testaments use the title Lord where the Hebrew text has YHWH, beginning in the opening pages of Genesis, one must conclude that calling Jesus “our Lord” means we are acknowledging Him as God Himself. How can you come to any other conclusion without distorting the words of Scripture?

Yahweh is called Lord. Jesus is called Lord. Both Paul and Zechariah say there is only one Lord. Therefore, Jesus must be Yahweh.

I'm puzzled by the distinction you're trying to make between Lord and God or Yahweh. Doesn't such an attempt make biblical interpretation more difficult because you then have to reword so many other biblical passages? Doesn't the Bible closely associate “Lord” and “God” from its opening pages?

Moses clearly said: "The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God" (Deuteronomy 4:24). It doesn't say: "The Lord is a consuming fire, and your God is a jealous God." When a Jewish Christian like Paul says there is only one Lord, there's no way he's saying there is someone who is Lord and then there is someone else that is God. To assert that is to ignore or forget that Paul was a Jew.

In important theological passages, Paul’s use of “Lord” for Jesus echoes Old Testament language concerning Yahweh. Paul was thoroughly formed by the Jewish Scriptures: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." -- Deuteronomy 6:4.

As a devout Jew, Paul would have been deeply familiar with the Shema, the confession beginning, “Hear, O Israel....”

Share this page:

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on WhatsApp

Watchtower Society interchange: Recently, a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses and I exchanged numerous emails about beliefs and doctrines. Here are the questions he asked and the responses I gave. This page preserves portions of that correspondence. There is some overlap in the material because the exchange occasionally circled back to topics covered earlier.

One regrettable aspect of our email exchange was that my Jehovah's Witness correspondent rarely commented on my answers or asked follow-up questions. As a result, relatively little sustained dialogue developed around the issues we discussed.

— Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu

You might also like these