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Ponder Scripture Newsletter
ith the seemingly
endless array of Bible-based articles, newsletters and other
publications currently available on the Internet, there is a
veritable "information overload" of sorts when it comes to searching
for various Bible-related topics. Since there is already an
abundance of Bible-related topics to choose from, you can well
imagine that one could devote his or her full time to reading these
studies. June and I have added our share of studies to
cyberspace, some of which are very lengthy. Indeed, some
topics require lengthy explanations to provide in-depth answers.
On this page, however, we want to keep things as "short and sweet"
as possible. While we primarily gear our writings to those who
share our understanding that the Torah is relevant for believers
today, anyone is welcome to read and offer feedback; however, due
to our schedules, we cannot guarantee a quick turn-around response
time. We invite you to direct all correspondence to seekutruth
at aol dot com.
Newsletter #15
Does Yahweh Worship = Jupiter Worship?
By Larry
and June Acheson
03/02/2015
hen it comes to being a truth seeker, one of the first things we come to
grips with is the name we use in reference to our Heavenly Father. Many
believers are coming to the realization that you just cannot improve on
the name that our Creator gave to Himself. Sadly, that realization
leads to unnecessary division amongst the very individuals seeking to
emulate the One they worship because now we are faced with several
opinions as to how that name is "correctly" pronounced. So on the one
hand, we are unified in our drive to call upon our Heavenly Father by
the name He gave to Himself, but on the other hand we're divided over
how to vocalize it. The latter cancels out the former. June and I do
understand that there is a reasoning process that gets each of us to the
current understandings that we all have. We do understand that we may
each come up with differing conclusions. What we don't understand
is the apparent need that some folks have to demonize or otherwise
denigrate pronunciations that do not match the one they come up with. Is
not the unity that we should be seeking the realization that our
Heavenly Father has an original Hebrew name and we are all doing our
best to use it? Among those who cherish the undeserved grace and
mercy extended to us by our loving Heavenly Father, we find it amazing
that we ourselves are often unwilling to extend that same grace and
mercy to others. What does this say about us and our faith?
What follows is a report of yet another round of "pronunciation bashing"
that continues to keep us divided.
Back in 2010 June and I were compelled to author a study titled “Pronunciation
of the Tetragrammaton” because a friend was being pressured
and hassled by a proponent of the pronunciation “Yahuwah.” Please
keep in mind that we do not take issue with those who come up with
different pronunciations than the one we personally use in reference to
the Creator (Yahweh). This includes the pronunciation "Yahuwah." The Yahuwah
proponent insisted that those who pronounce the Creator’s name as
“Yahweh” don’t really understand Hebrew linguistics, plus he maintained
that the name “Yahweh” is a product of Jupiter worship. We addressed
those claims in our study, which was expanded to cover all the arguments
against the "Yahweh" pronunciation that we have ever heard. To date, no
one has taken the time to point out any errors that we may have made in
composing our study. The only complaint that we have received to this
point has come from a known “skimmer,” who was only interested reading
our bottom-line conclusion (in just a few pages) as to why "Yahweh" is
right and "Yahuwah" is wrong. Since our aim was at defending the
"Yahweh" pronunciation against what we feel are the unfair attacks
perpetrated upon it instead of disproving "Yahuwah," the reader was
disappointed.
We are on Karaite Jew Nehemia Gordon’s e-mail distribution list, and
judging by his e-mail of February 26, 2015, titled “Have You Been
Praying to Jupiter?” I am persuaded that he has not read our study. We
have known for many years that Nehemia is a vocal advocate of the
pronunciation "Yehovah," and we address his arguments supporting
Yehovah over Yahweh in the latter portion of our study.
Actually, we address the arguments put forth by his sidekick, Keith
Johnson in his book His Hallowed Name Revealed Again, but we know
Keith learned the form Yehovah from Nehemia Gordon, so it's the
same difference. It’s understandable that Nehemia hasn't read our
study because he is a busy man, hopping on planes and preparing
mega-seminars for his cult following. We may be on his massive e-mail
distribution list, but we aren’t on his radar. I was anxious to read
how Nehemia links the pronunciation Yahweh to Jupiter worship,
but sadly, I'm unable to access it. To read Nehemia’s full-length
article detailing how those who rely on the “misguided pronunciation
‘Yahweh’” are on the wrong path, you need to access his web site and sign in with a password.
Well, it’s too bad we don’t belong to Nehemia’s special club, so we
aren’t able to read his apparently vital information that would reveal
how folks like us are [in his estimation] deceived into referring to the
Almighty as “Yahweh.”
Until we gain access to Mr. Gordon’s article, I guess we’ll just have to
continue down our current road of deception, all because we aren’t
interested in getting a password to read his material. Of course, we do
not consider the pronunciation Yahweh to be misguided or
otherwise maligned. From our perspective, the pronunciation Yahweh is just fine, but if Nehemiah Gordon wants to show us we’re
wrong, he is welcome to contact us. We’re not saying that we’re 100%
certain that Yahweh is the closest that anyone can come to
vocalizing the name given to Moses at the burning bush, but it is
backed by some pretty solid evidence that we haven’t seen refuted in our
nearly 30 years of (reverently) using that name.
If you have read our study on this topic, you know that we address the
claims that we first heard from a man named Brian Allen back in the
mid-1990’s about how Yahweh worship is traced to Jupiter worship. In
chapters 12 and 13 of our study, specifically the section titled “Gasp!
Is ‘Yahweh’ Associated With ‘Jove’?” we cover the fact that the pure
worship of the Almighty was definitely corrupted, leading to a
heathenistic worship of whatever name of the Creator the ancients called
on. We need look no further than the "Golden Calf Incident" of Exodus
32. If that name was Yehovah, then could not Jupiter worship have
sprung from the corrupted worship of Yehovah? Regardless of how
the Creator's name is pronounced, it was tainted by heathen
worship during the "Golden Calf Incident." If the correct
pronunciation is Yahweh, it would be Nehemia
Gordon’s job to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that Jupiter worship preceded the worship of Yahweh. I highly doubt that he can do such
a thing, but again, if he has, we would love to hear from him.
One of the best evidences
of the accuracy of the form Yahweh is the fact that a close
approximation of Yahweh is what ancient Greeks heard the
Samaritans use. For those who want documentation of this, you can read
all about this in our study. The rabbis were incensed that the
Samaritans would pronounce the Tetragrammaton “according to its
letters,” and they proclaimed that, on that basis, the Samaritans will
have no part in the world to come. This, of course, is due to the
rabbinical "Ineffable Name Doctrine," which decrees that the Creator's
name is "too holy to pronounce" and anyone who dares do such a thing is
automatically condemned. If the Samaritans, then, were pronouncing
the Name according to its letters and the rabbis were upset about it,
that’s another way for the rabbis to say those Samaritans were pronouncing the Name
correctly! And to say they would therefore have no part in the world to
come was a polite way of saying the Samaritans are going to hell for
violating their "Ineffable Name Doctrine." Now why would
the rabbis get all bent out of shape about the Samaritans vocalizing the
Creator’s name if they were butchering it? That would not make any
sense. Nevertheless, another of Nehemia Gordon’s arguments is that
confusion about how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton can be traced to the
“Babylonian ecumenical spirit of the Samaritans.” Might I suggest that,
unless he can come up with a dandy retort to the reasoning I just
presented, Nehemia Gordon is the one who’s confused. So how did the
Greek scholars repeat what they heard the Samaritans say? They wrote it
out in Greek as Iabe. Iabe is pronounced nearly the same
as Yahweh because the Greek “b” by this time was pronounced as a
“v,” which in turn traces to the Hebrew “waw,” which is more anciently a
“w” sound. If we can allow for dialectal differences, combined with
word-of-mouth distortions, Iabe comes very, very close to Yahweh.
Nehemia knows how to pique his readers’ interest. In his e-mail, he
tempts us with some photos of ancient coins, which some might think
furnishes evidence that Mr. Gordon knows something about how those coins
prove that Yahweh is a corrupt and paganized form of the
Tetragrammaton. Here’s the pertinent portion of the e-mail:
When it comes to tracing
the form Yahweh to heathen idol worship, Nehemia Gordon
is apparently taking a cue from Brian Allen in renouncing the
pronunciation “Yahweh” because, in his apparent estimation, Yahweh
stems from Jupiter worship. That is the big claim that Brian Allen was
making back in 1996 or so, and he apparently continues to do the same
today. We address Brian’s “Yahweh = Jupiter” claim head-on in our
full-length study. If this is indeed the same case that Nehemia
Gordon tries to build, he will have to demonstrate that before Jupiter
worship came into being, believers were vocalizing the Almighty's name
as “Yehovah,” then after some believers began imitating Jupiter worship,
the pronunciation “Yahweh” began to develop. I doubt if he or anyone
can demonstrate such a thing and I would love to see how he tries.
In the meantime, I remain
persuaded that the name “Jupiter” was formed with a combination of “Iao,”
which is a short form pronunciation of “Yah,” and “pater,” the Greek
word for “father.” Hence Iao-pater. The beginning of this
practice could have been very innocent. Missionaries could have taught
some novice converts that Yahweh is the Father and “Iao-pater” very
easily could have developed from that. Since these were novice converts, they likely didn't
completely abandon their former pagan practices and eventually
“Iao-pater” became an idol. It's similar to how June's sister was with
a group back in the 1970's that worshipped Yahweh, but they met on
Sundays for worship. From our perspective, they were referring to the
Almighty with an accurate transliteration of His original name, but they
were meeting on a day of the week other than the one He commanded. Some
writers are persuaded that the short form “IAO” was actually borrowed by
pagans and purposely incorporated into their own misguided forms
of worship. As one man put it, “The use of IAO by the post-NT Gnostics was
specifically DONE to confuse its audience—so their practice of borrowing
names from antecedent religious systems is still working!”
In summary, I am persuaded that the worship of Jupiter sprang from a
corruption of the worship of Yahweh, not the reverse. I would challenge Nehemia Gordon to prove otherwise. I highly doubt that his
article accomplishes such a thing. Sadly, the gullible masses within
the Hebrew Roots Movement turn to Nehemia for answers and his word for
them is gospel. We have seen this behavior exhibited on several
occasions and we don't look for it to end any time soon. Although
we may not agree with the pronunciation that Nehemia Gordon promotes, we
nevertheless respect the reasoning process that it took to get him where
he is today and we are really not interested in debating who is right
and who is wrong. However, we will defend the pronunciation
"Yahweh" when we feel it is unfairly attacked and sadly, that has become
Nehemia Gordon's approach (unless he can demonstrate otherwise).
Stalked by Linksters!
03/14/2015
don't usually add commentary to an existing one that I've already
posted, but I decided to make an exception with this one because only a
few days after putting up this newsletter commentary, we received an
anonymous, yet related, e-mail from a guy who apparently stumbled across
our web site and felt compelled to let June and me know (without the
benefit of any explanation) that we have both the Creator's name and the
Messiah's name wrong. June and I receive quite a few e-mails, some
of which have proven to be very helpful in our "wilderness journey," but
some of which are a pure waste of time. As a general rule, we have
found that most anonymous e-mails are a waste of time, and the one we
recently received informing us that we have the Names wrong was no
exception. The sender is an individual that I refer to as a "linkster"--someone who, in the absence of any cohesive communication skills,
doesn't offer any commentary or explanatory notes to help guide us to a
better understanding, but rather copies and pastes web site links into
the body of his or her e-mail. The obvious expectation is that
once we access all the links and read the various articles associated
with each one, we're going to come away with a brand new perspective.
Here's a look at the e-mail we received:
I actually accessed most of the
links in the anonymous sender's e-mail, but found absolutely nothing
offering any evidence (credible or otherwise) that the original
pronunciation of the Creator's name is Yahuwah or that the original
pronunciation of the Messiah's name is Yahushua. In other words, it was
a waste of time. Here is the response I sent our anonymous
linkster:
We were at least encouraged
from the linkster's reply that he is willing to identify himself.
It turns out his name is Gregory Allen Thompson. However, it
became clear that he is not interested in reading our study on this
topic, nor does he share our view that instead of bickering over the
"one true pronunciation" of the Names, we should be working together,
unified that our Creator and His Son have Hebrew names and that we are
each dong our best to respectfully use those names. Rather, he
decided to share yet additional links that he apparently feels
disqualify the pronunciation Yahweh. And what do those web
site articles specifically hone in on? That's right, the same
thing referenced above by Nehemia Gordon -- (a) attempting to malign the
Samaritan pronunciation and (b) claiming that the name "Yahweh" emanates
from Jupiter worship. Here's a copy of his e-mail reply:
Since I really do not want to
correspond with those whose ability to communicate is limited to
e-mailing links to various web sites, I have chosen to not pursue a
discussion with Mr. Thompson. However, if he should somehow come
across this newsletter commentary and wants to let me know why the
Jewish rabbis accused the Samaritans of pronouncing the divine name
"according to its letters" if, in fact, they were actually speaking the
name of Jupiter, I would be most interested in his explanation (without
including any more of his links, of course!).
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