What's in a name? III

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The New Encyclopedia Britannica states that the

"earliest Christians celebrated the Lord's Passover at the same time as the Jews, during the night of the first (paschal) full Moon of the first month of spring (Nisan 14-15). By the middle of the 2^nd century, most churches had transferred this celebration to the Sunday after the Jewish feast."

From this time - "middle of the 2^nd century" (180 A. D., at least) - until the blasphemous Nicene Council (325 A. D.) "Hostility against Jews and Jewish customs led to formal debates [about the date for "Easter"] in councils of the Church." - How It Started, Garrison, p. 49, Abingdon Press, 1972.

With the example of the extremely important "Easter/Passover" reaction of the Gentile "Christians" in mind we should not be surprised that these same Jewish-hating people changed the Hebrew name of the "Jewish" God during their attempts to "smooth out" "the text of Scripture" during the same time period. In fact it would be surprising if they hadn't.

Remember, these "Christians" were mostly Greek (or Latin) speaking Gentiles. It was relatively easy for them to change all the instances of Yahweh and Yah to "Lord" or "God" since those words clearly stood out from the rest of the Greek writing in their Hebrew characters. But what if the hated name had been incorporated into other words and then transliterated into Greek by the original Septuagint translators? Would the name-removing Greek-speaking copyists still recognize it? Apparently not.

We find that when the shortened form of the Divine Name (Jah) was left in Hebrew characters by the original Jewish translators of the Septuagint, the "Christian" copyists always changed it to "Lord." But when the original Jewish translators had incorporated it with another word or words (as in proper names, e.g., "Elijah" [which means "God is Jehovah" - p. 674, Today's Dictionary of the Bible, Bethany House Publ., 1982] or in the phrase "Praise ye Jehovah" [Hallelu JAH]) and transliterated it into Greek characters, it became an acceptable "Greek" word (although one whose meaning they didn't wholly understand) to the "Christian" copyists, and they didn't change it (out of ignorance only). This is very obvious in the "Hallelujah" Psalms where, for some reason, the original Septuagint translators combined the two Hebrew words Hallelu ("Praise ye") and Jah ("Jehovah") and then put that new word into GREEK characters (which still had the Hebrew pronunciation of "Hallelujah").

When the 2^nd century Jew-despising "Christian" copyists saw "Jah" in Hebrew characters, they always removed it entirely or changed it to "Lord" or "God" - e.g., Ex. 15:2; Ps. 68:4, 18; Is. 26:4. But when they saw the Greek characters of "HalleluJAH" ( JAllhlouia) they always left it unchanged:

All uses of an independent (standing alone, not attached to other words or names) "Jah" in the Hebrew Scriptures as translated by the modern Greek Septuagint:


* - Ex. 15:2

* - Ex. 17:16

K - Ps. 68:4 (:5 Heb.)

* - Ps. 68:18 (:19)

K - Ps. 77:11 (:12)

K - Ps. 89:8 (:9)

K - Ps. 94:7

K - Ps. 94:12

K - Ps. 102:18 (:19)

H - Ps. 104:35


________________________
_/ H - Ps. 105:45 - Combined

\ H - Ps. 106:1 in Sept.___



H - Ps. 106:48

H - Ps. 111:1

H - Ps. 112:1

H - Ps. 113:1

H - Ps. 113:9

K - Ps. 115:17

K - Ps. 115:18a

H - Ps. 115:18b

H - Ps. 116:19

H - Ps. 117:2

K - Ps. 118:5a

* - Ps. 118:5b

K - Ps. 118:14

K - Ps. 118:17

K - Ps. 118:18

K - Ps. 118:19

K - Ps. 122:4

K - Ps. 130:3

H - Ps. 135:1

K - Ps. 135:3

K - Ps. 135:4

H - Ps. 135:21

H - Ps. 146:1


________________________
_ /H - Ps. 146:10 - Combined

\H - Ps. 147:1 in Sept.____


________________________
_/H - Ps. 147:20 - Combined

\H - Ps. 148:1 in Sept.____



________________________
_/H - Ps. 148:14 - Combined

\H - Ps. 149:1 in Sept.____


_______________________
_/H - Ps. 149:9 - Combined

\H - Ps. 150:1 in Sept.____



K - Ps. 150:6a

* - Ps. 150:6b

* - Ca. 8:6

K - Is. 12:2

Th Is. 26:4

Th - Is. 38:11

................................................

* - Reworded to eliminate use of Jah, “God,” and “Lord” in existing Sept. MSS.

K - Jah has been replaced with Kurios (‘Lord’) in extant Sept. MSS.

Th - Jah has been replaced with Theos (‘God’) in extant Sept. MSS.

H - Jah has been transliterated into Greek letters of HalleluJAH in Sept.