Did Jesus and his disciples tell others about Jehovah?

[Eloi]

The Jews to whom they were first preached the good news of the Kingdom already knew who God is. Jesus and his apostles were Jews, so they knew it too. The OT is full of references to the person of God and his personal name, so Jews were considered His witnesses (Is. 43:10-12). Jesus even told the Jews that the One they believed to be their God was his own Father.

John 8:54 Jesus answered: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, the one who you say is your God. 55 Yet you have not known him, but I know him. And if I said I do not know him, I would be like you, a liar. But I do know him and am observing his word.

Although Jesus mentioned his Father to them many times, he had to make them understand that he was the Messiah that Jehovah had promised before, but they did not believe him. In time it began to be preached to non-Jews who believed in many gods, and who had no idea of the importance of God's Messiah.

What God did Judeo-Christians speak to non-Jews when Christian congregations began to form in the first century? Did they talk about Jehovah, or did they forget about him? Can a worshiper of Jehovah forget his God?

[Tcg]

We can know that Jehovah's name was mentioned and written by inspired Christians because their service to Jehovah was as important to them as it was to Jehovah's faithful servants until at least 4 centuries before Christ was born, when the last pre-Christian inspired book was written. The Name of Jehovah was written, mentioned and respected until that very time.

This is impossible. Vowels were not added to the English alphabet until around 700 AD. The vowels needed to write the word, "Jehovah" could not have been written before that time.


Tcg

For me what is impossible is that when someone hears a Jehovah's Witness speak of the Name of God, they still think that we mean a name in English and not a person.

You made a claim about the word "Jehovah" being written. I addressed the fallacy of that claim not someone pronouncing the word.

Is it too difficult for you to understand what I mean when I say that Jehovah's name was mentioned by Jesus and his disciples and written in the NT autographs? Did they need the Hebrew vowel signs that were later invented to use the name of God that is mentioned about 6,000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures?

Once again, you made a claim about the word "Jehovah" being written during a time period when that would have been impossible. Please note also that I didn't say anything about the Hebrew language. The reason I didn't is quite obvious. The word, "Jehovah" isn't a Hebrew word. The word "Jehovah", the word which is the subject of your claim, appears exactly 0 times in the Hebrew Scripture.


Tcg

[Eloi]

And again:

For me what is impossible is that when someone hears a Jehovah's Witness speak of the Name of God, they still think that we mean a name in English
(...)
Is it too difficult for you to understand what I mean when I say that Jehovah's name was mentioned by Jesus and his disciples and written in the NT autographs?
(...)
I expected more from the readers of this forum.

How does a mind work where "Jehovah's name was mentioned and written by inspired Christians" becomes "a claim about the word "Jehovah" being written"?

If I tell you that Jehovah's name is mentioned by all Jehovah's Witnesses in the world, would you think I mean that the more than 8 and a half million Witnesses in more than 240 countries use the form "Jehovah" in English? How can you try to reason with a person whose mind works like that?

Have an excelent day.

[Tcg]

How does a mind work where "Jehovah's name was mentioned and written by inspired Christians" becomes "a claim about the word "Jehovah" being written"?

<bolding mine>

It works very precisely. Please note the words I have bolded. They are the same. You made a claim about the word, "Jehovah" being written and I addressed your claim about the word, "Jehovah" being written.


Tcg

[Eloi]

I help you: when a Jehovah's Witness speaks of "the name of Jehovah", he refers to all the known forms that translate the Hebrew tetragrammaton in all the languages of the world.

No one is supposed to think that the English form "Jehovah" was used by Jesus or his disciples ... I don't even use it when speaking in my language. But not all of us realize the same things. I will try to be more careful next time, lest what seems so obvious to me, must be explained to someone else as if he were a child.

Thanks for your time on my topic. I hope you have understood what I mean when I say that Jehovah's name was used by Jesus and his followers in the first century and written in NT autographs. Perhaps now it is easier for you to understand what I mean when I say that Jesus used Jehovah's name on this occasion:

Mark 12:28 One of the scribes who had come up and heard them disputing, knowing that he had answered them in a fine way, asked him: “Which commandment is first of all?” 29 Jesus answered: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, 30 and you must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 The scribe said to him: “Teacher, you spoke well, in line with truth, ‘He is One, and there is no other besides him’; 33 and to love him with one’s whole heart, with one’s whole understanding, and with one’s whole strength and to love one’s neighbor as oneself is worth far more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 At this Jesus, discerning that he had answered intelligently, said to him: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” But no one had the courage to question him anymore.

He was quoting from here:

Deut. 6:4 “Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. 5 You must love Jehovah your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength".

[Tcg]

No one is supposed to think that the English form "Jehovah" was used by Jesus or his disciples ... I don't even use it when speaking in my language.

And yet that was the claim that you made and is the claim I addressed. It is not my responsibility to guess what the claim should have stated but didn't.


Tcg

[Eloi]

Moving on with the topic, now that everyone understood what I meant when I said Jesus and his followers used the name of Jehovah, let's add more biblical facts on this matter. Notice that on this occasion Jesus Christ is given a scroll of Scripture that was in the collection of the synagogue in which he appeared:

Luke 4:16 He then went to Nazʹa·reth, where he had been brought up, and according to his custom on the Sabbath day, he entered the synagogue and stood up to read. 17 So the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away free, 19 to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” 20 With that he rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were intently fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.”

This passage was the one he read:

Is. 61:1 The spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah is upon me,
Because Jehovah anointed me to declare good news to the meek.
He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And the wide opening of the eyes to the prisoners,
2 To proclaim the year of Jehovah’s goodwill (...)

Obviously, Jesus mentioned Jehovah's name. Does anyone not understand what I mean by that? Likewise, if someone does not know who I mean when I use the form "Jesus", they can ask me and I will help them to know who I mean.

[Tcg]

Moving on with the topic, now that everyone understood what I meant when I said Jesus and his followers used the name of Jehovah, let's add more biblical facts on this matter. Notice that on this occasion Jesus Christ is given a scroll of Scripture that was in the collection of the synagogue in which he appeared:

Luke 4:16 He then went to Nazʹa·reth, where he had been brought up, and according to his custom on the Sabbath day, he entered the synagogue and stood up to read. 17 So the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away free, 19 to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” 20 With that he rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were intently fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.”

This passage was the one he read:

Is. 61:1 The spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah is upon me,
Because Jehovah anointed me to declare good news to the meek.
He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And the wide opening of the eyes to the prisoners,
2 To proclaim the year of Jehovah’s goodwill (...)

Obviously, Jesus mentioned Jehovah's name. Does anyone not understand what I mean by that? Likewise, if someone does not know who I mean when I use the form "Jesus", they can ask me and I will help them to know who I mean.

You are using an English translation of both Luke and Isaiah to support your claim that Jesus used the word "Jehovah." Certainly you understand that the Hebrew scroll wouldn't have contained a English word and that Jesus, an Israelite from the Ancient Near East, would not have spoken English.


Tcg

[Eloi]

You are using an English translation of both Luke and Isaiah to support your claim that Jesus used the word "Jehovah." Certainly you understand that the Hebrew scroll wouldn't have contained a English word and that Jesus, an Israelite from the Ancient Near East, would not have spoken English.

Tcg

Oh, well ... if you want my post in hebrew or greek, go to Google Translate as I do. Instead of translating from Spanish to English like me, translate from English to Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek, and voila ... Do your homework; I'm not going to do it for you.

Lucky you, modern Hebrew does not use written vowels either, at least not always, so you will know how Jesus Christ read Jehovah's name from the Isaiah scroll as Luke tells us in Luke 4: 16-21. By the way, did you know that if you read Hebrew versions of the NT, you can find Jehovah's name many times?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to Tcg in post #68]

Eloi is not saying that Jesus pronounced God's name "Jehovah." Why do you keep beating him back with that? We don't know EXACTLY how Jesus pronounced his Father's name, but he certainly spoke it, somehow. It would be OK if he just said the four Hebrew consonants---Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh. There are many ways to pronounce God's name, depending on the language one speaks.

[Difflugia]

Oh, well ... if you want my post in hebrew or greek, go to Google Translate as I do.

There's no need. The Greek New Testament reports how he read it (exactly, if one believes in plenary, verbal inerrancy):

πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπʼ ἐμὲ
οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισέν με
εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς,
ἀπέσταλκέν με,
κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν
καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν,
ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει,
κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτόν.

Since that's the Greek word for "Lord," we can assume that's a direct translation of Jesus' oral reading. It appears, at least to the extent that the Bible is authoritative, that Jesus replaced the Tetragrammaton with the Hebrew word אֲדֹנָי, 'Adonay.