YeHoWaH is not the real name of God, but it was coined by Raimondo Martini for a misreading of the Masoretic Hebrew text. Due to the prohibition in Judaism to pronounce God’s name (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11), the Jews read הַשֵּׁם (transliterated: haShem) which means “the Name”, or אֲדֹנָי (transliterated: Ădōnāy) which means “Lord,” the tetragrammaton יהוה (transliterated: YHWH), originally written only with the four letters ה (he) ו (waw) ה (he) י (yod), to be read from right to left (yod, he, waw, he), as in this way the Hebrew text must be read. Thus in the 6th-10th centuries AD the Masoretes – who, in copying the Hebrew Bible, added vowel signs (in fact the vowel signs in the Hebrew text preceding the Masoretic one were missing) – instead of adding the correct vowel signs known to the Jews to the tetragrammaton, they added the signs vowels of Ădōnāy. To the consonant י (yod) has been added ְ (shwà) which corresponds to “e”, instead of ֲ (hatèf-patah) which corresponds to “ă”, and therefore as transliteration we have YeHoWaH, not YaHoWaH. The Jewish reader, encountering the tetragrammaton with the vowels of Ădōnāy instead of the correct ones, knew that he had to read Ădōnāy. If, on the other hand, the tetragrammaton was already preceded by Ădōnāy, it had to be read יֱהֹוִה (ie with the vowels of אֱלֹהִים [transliterated: Elohim] which means “God”). Then the Jewish reader read the YHWH tetragram as Ădōnāy, or as Elohim if the tetragram was already preceded by Ădōnāy. In 1270 the Spanish Catholic Raimondo Martini, encountering the tetragrammaton YHWH with the vowels of Ădōnāy added by the Masoretes, namely יְהֹוָה, made the mistake of reading it and transliterating it as YeHoWaH (see “Pugio Fidei”). Unfortunately Martini, not being a Jewish reader, was unaware that being in front of יְהֹוָה, Ădōnāy had to read it, not YeHoWaH. Martini’s mistake influenced some Catholic communities which impressed YeHoWaH in some Churches. However, the Catholic Church never adopted the YeHoWaH form in official worship and catechisms. Later, when the error was discovered, the form YeHoWaH was abandoned. In 1530 the Lutheran William Tyndale published his English translation of the first five books of the Bible, in which he inserted the form YeHoWaH. In the wake of Tyndale, others too, including the authors of the New World Translation, who have added the form YeHoWaH nearly seven thousand times in the Old Testament, and more than two hundred times in the New Testament. Jesus, who knew God’s name very well, taught us that we must call God “Father” (Matthew 6:9). But already in Jeremiah we see God saying to his people: “I said, Thou shalt call me ‘My father’, and shalt not turn away from me.” (Jeremiah 3:19) Today, many scholars believe that YaHWeH is the most correct form of the tetragrammaton. However, most translations prefer to render YHWH with “Lord”, or with “Eternal”, or capitalized “LORD”. The tetragrammaton YHWH is missing in the New Testament, but there is Kyrios which means Lord, almost always attributed to Jesus. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, Kyrios translates the Hebrew Ădōnāy used by the Jews instead of the tetragrammaton. The writers of the first century also read the Greek version of the Old Testament, and therefore were well aware of the meaning of the Kyrios that they attributed as much to God as to Jesus. In the Watchtower writings it is said that today the correct vowels to insert in the tetragrammaton and therefore the original pronunciation of the sacred name are not known, and that YeHoWaH is used by their congregation only by tradition (see “The Truth That Leads to Life eternal” page 127, or “Reasoning” pages 158-159, or “The Divine Name” page 6 and page 23). And yet, Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to hold that YeHoWaH is the divine name. They also insist on Jesus’ words about sanctifying God’s name (Luke 11:2). But the name is here a sign of presence and power, and is confused with God himself. For example, a proverb says that “the name of the Lord is a strong tower” (Proverbs 18:10), while a psalm says that God himself is “a strong tower” (Psalms 61:3). The most important name for Christians is that of Jesus, “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9), and “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10).
“Jehovah: a mispronunciation of the Hebrew YaHWeH, the name of God. The pronunciation of Jehovah is grammatically impossible.” (The Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 7, 1904 states)
“It is clear that the word Jehovah is an artificial composite.” (The New Jewish Encyclopedia, 1962 states)
“The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced YaHWeH.” (Encyclopedia Judaica, page 680, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1971)
“Jehovah: erroneous form of the name of the God of Israel.” (Encyclopedia Americana, volume 16, 1972 ed.)
“Jehovah is a False reading of the Hebrew YaHWeH.” (New Collegiate Dictionary, 1973 ed. states)
“The Masoretes who from the 6th to the 10th century worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible replaced the vowels of the Name YHWH with the vowel signs of Ădōnāy or Elohim. Thus the artificial name Jehovah came into being.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 12, 1993 states)
“The true pronunciation of the tetragrammaton, YHWH, was never lost. The Name was pronounced YHWH. It was regularly pronounced this way at least until 586 B.C., as is clear from the Lachish Letters written shortly before this date.” (The Encyclopedia Judaica, page 680, volume 7)
Cristiani Cattolici Romani 