Articles


God’s Name

 

 

Jesus said in prayer to his Father: «I declared Your name to them... and will make it known». (John 17:26)

When the Creator spoke to Moses through an angel, gave himself a name that has been systematically replaced by «God», and also by «Lord», which is also applied to Jesus, thus creating confusion.

 

In ancient manuscripts, God's name is read from right to left and spelled with four Hebrew consonants: יהוה (YHUH), four letters known as Tetragramma. Based on the pronunciation preserved in many theophorus Hebrew names (names containing the Tetragramma), as Yahushua, meaning «Yahuh saves» or Yahúkin, meaning «Yahuh strengthens», we transcribe the name that God gave himself before Moses, as Yahuh. This diction matches the theophorus names on the lists of deported Israelites, arrived to us through some Assyrian Babylonian cuneiform tablets, written in a syllabic alphabet that discloses its pronunciation.

 

When in the second century AD, Clement of Alexandria transcribed to Greek alphabet the name of God found on the Hebrew Scriptures, he wrote «Ιαου» (IAOU) (Stromata V, 6, 34), which is read Yahuh, since the Greek diphthong «OU» reads «U», just like in French.

Moreover, this is also the correct pronunciation for some well-known historians, as the Abbot Giuseppe Ricciotti, biblical scholar and archeologist. (History of Israel)