Jove

I’m pretty sure after seeing this title, you’re probably wondering what in the world am I talking about. Well, strap on your seatbelt because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

So I am a part of a Messianic Jewish congregation, ironically comprised of more non-Jews than Jews. Within our congregation, we embrace a lot of the Jewish practices such as eating kosher, observing holy days and praying much of the Hebrew liturgy. You would that the majority of us would be some what knowledgeable in the Hebrew tongue, but surprisingly that isn’t the case.

I’m happy to say that I do not fall in that category. I have been studying Hebrew for nearly 5 years. I am not fluent, but I understand more than many of my counterparts. I felt this was important because I wanted to know for myself what I was being taught was actually what the Hebrew Scriptures were saying. From personal experience, I have found that not many share this view, and as a result, they run with whatever they hear across the pulpit, without even a thought to verify it.

As a result of this, there are countless issues that are debated and disagreed over. One such issue is the basis for this blog. Now, when I came into the Messianic movement, I one of the things I wanted to know was, what is the name of the Creator. Growing up in the Christian church, I heard a few different names. Not much changed when I crossed over to the Messianic side either. I was a bit perplexed because I just knew it would be different within a Hebrew community.

Early on, I found that there were 3 particular names that were being used by the people. Of the 3 names, there was one that stood out. I heard this one both in the church and in the Messianic community. This motivated me to search for myself because there just couldn’t be 3 names for the same God. I will not get into all of the names at this time, but I will get into the one that is most prevalent of the the 3.

The most popular name for God, used by both the Christian church and a majority of the Messianic community is “Yahweh”. But is this really the correct name? I mean both sides embrace it so it has to be right, right? Well thats what we are about to discuss. The first thing we need to do is take a trip to the past. By looking into the origins of things, we can learn a lot. One of the first points I want to bring out is that in the Hebrew Bible, which basically refers to the Old Testament, we find the 4 letters of God’s name over 6000 times.

Interestingly enough, we do not find these 4 letters anywhere in the New Testament, which I might add was predominantly written in Greek. Why is this? One reason is that the letters of God’s name cannot be translated in Greek and still embody the essence it has in Hebrew. For this reason, I believe this is one of the reasons we do not see it there. There are also translational issues as well. What I mean is that there are letters that Hebrew has that Greek doesn’t and vice versa. One such letter is the letter “V”. Hebrew has a “V”, whereas Greek has a “W” for starters.

Let’s take a look at Rome. It is no secret that Rome had a pantheon of gods back in the Bible days. In fact, Rome even adopted many of the Greek gods, such as Zeus. For the Romans, Zeus became Jupiter, which in their language basically means “Sky Father”. In order for this to really make sense, we need to discuss linguistic rules so that it makes more sense.

According to Latin pronunciation rules, the letter “J” was written as the letter “I”, and when at the beginning of a word, took on the “Y” sound. The letter “O” has both a long and short sound. The long “O” sound was like the “O” in “go”, and the short “O” sound was like the “A” in “father. The letter “V” as we discussed earlier, always has the “W” sound. Finally the “E”, like the “O” has both a long and short sound as well. The long “E” sounds like the “A” in “say”, and the short “E” sounds like the “E” in “red”. Let that sink in.

With the above in mind, here are a few variations of what “Jove” would sound like: Yowe (Yohweh), Yowa (Yohway), Yawe (Yahweh), and Yawa (Yahway). Each variation reflects both the long and short sounds of the “O” and “E”. Also, keep in mind that we already established that there was no “J” sound at that time, and that the “I” sound took on the “Y”. Based on the linguistic evidence, we find that the origins of the name “Yahweh” most likely came from the Roman “Jove” which sounds like “Yahweh”.

The last thing to point out is, what does the name “Jove” mean? Well, first of all, we need to use the name in its entirety. We have already pointed out that Romans knew the Greek god Zeus by the name of Jupiter. In Latin, the name Jupiter is comprised of two words. The first word is “Jove”, which means “sky”, and the second word “pater” which means “father”. When you put them together, you get “sky father”. When considering the evolution of words as well as the alphabet, the letter “J” was eventually born, and given its own sound, and the two words eventually merged into one, much like many of the words we use today.

For many of you, you yourselves probably refer to God as Yahweh because it is such a commonly used name, and almost everyone uses it, but of all the people that use it, just how many would you say have done an in-depth study on the proper name? I have asked a few people, and although they were so sure of it, not one could give any concrete evidence. Not one of them were familiar with Latin, Greek or Hebrew, which makes it reasonably difficult to cite any of the info I laid out. Am I saying that I am 100% right? No, even in the midst of all my study, the name I call God by may be wrong as well, but the one thing I do stand on is the fact that “Yahweh” is not the right pronunciation.

As I bring this to a close, I would also point out that the Hebrew language is a language based on action. That applies to pretty much every word. That said, when looking at the name “Yahweh”, the so called name of God, it actually has no meaning in Hebrew whatsoever. The idea that the entire language is based on action, but the name of the Creator is the exception to the rule just doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I would love to hear your comments in the remarks. Again, I am not saying I have all the answers, but I do love to research, and your questions motivate me to do what I love to do best because at the end of the day, it only betters us as we dig into the Scriptures.