Subject: The name YHVH known from the beginning
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 23:20:58 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

From:          Jan Kapteyn 
To:                heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:       Hebrew glossary

Shalom Johann 

I have received your Hebrew glossary via Email from the Hebraic roots
group and I admire the amount of work done on this project.
However, there is one point I would like you to give some prayer full
consideration to. You made the following comment by the name El Shaddai.

<El Shaddai
<The All-Sufficient and Almighty One.  Until the time of Mosheh, the
<Almighty made Himself known to the patriarchs in the character
<expressed by the name El Shaddai.  Ever since Mosheh, He has also
<revealed Himself in the character expressed by the name
<YHWH-everlasting, escalating, manifest existence expressed in loyal
<covenantal love.
<

This often suggested meaning, has been caused by a possible wrong
translation of Exodus 6:3.

Quoting the NASB it says: " and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
as God Almighty, but by my name (?) Lord I did not made Myself known 
to them."

One of YHVH's principle is (Deut. 19:15): "by the mouth of two witnesses
or by the mouth of three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed."

This to goes for Scripture. Any Biblical conclusion or a way of
translation has to be proved, and can be, by at least two other places
in Scripture.

The conclusion drawn from this translation of Ex.6:3 can not be
confirmed from other Scripture.

However, it can be proven from Scripture that the name Yahweh was 
known from the early beginnings.

We have to go to the Hebrew text to do this. Our translations are, due
to the substitutions used, not reliable to do this.

First of all the name Yahweh (YHVH) appears 141 times in Genesis. That
could be explained by saying that, Moshe knew the name and he wrote
Genesis.

But Moshe, according to our believes, wrote inerrant. This means that he
must have quoted verbatim, the words which the people used.
Let us start with Adam and Eve. In Gen.4:1, Eve said: "fatomer koniytiey
iesh et-Yahweh" Translated " and she said I have gotten a man directly
from Yahweh." Next is Abraham, in Gen.15:2 it says: "fayomer abram
adonai yahweh"
translated: "and says Abram my sovereign Yahweh" and as third one, some
one outside Israel, Laban. In Gen.30:27 it says: "Yahweh biglaleach"
"Yahweh has blessed me through you" If you excuse my phonetics, then
here are three proofs that people used the name Yahweh before Moshe.
What about Ex. 6:3. First of all there are no punctuation marks in the
Hebrew. The intonation has to be observed from the context.
The context from Ex.5 and 6, teaches us that Yahweh got annoyed with the
objections of Moshe. So He says: "Ani Yahweh faera el-abraham
el-yitzchak fe'el-yaakov be'el shadai ooshemi yahweh lo nodati lahem"
which we could translate: " I am Yahweh and appeared to Abraham, to
Isaac and to Jacob as the almighty God and (was) My name Yahweh not
known to them?" This translation which is legitimate, does not
contradict the use of the name Yahweh before Moshe.

I hope you will consider this not as a criticism, but as a sharing of
opinion.

With friendly greetings from,
Jan
-- 
J.C.Kapteyn
The Netherlands
Home Page http://www.pi.net/~kapteynj

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