The Names of Jehovah God

[RZehr]

If KJV hadn't used "the LORD" in place of God's name, me thinks most Mennonites would be using God's name to this day...

Probably so.

[Josh]

The term “I am that I am” is hardly a name either. I’d call it a pronoun.

God called it HIS name. You want to contradict HIM?
There are meanings behind every name, even yours, Josh. We don't go around calling you "man" in substitution for your name do we. Man is what you are but not your name.

OK, gc. How do you pronounce this name? How do you write it?

[Josh]

Most Mennonites I know have no problem with Jehovah being the name of God. It's simply not a discussion point. We accept it, and make no issue of it. However, we don't commonly use His name Jehovah in the course of the day, that is not our habit. We just say God.

But "Jehovah" is no more God's name than "God" is. It's a transliteration, and not a particularly accurate one.

In English, saying "God" means the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a proper noun. The word "God" is nothing at all like calling me "man".

[gcdonner]

Ignorance is not bliss, Josh, you are arguing against yourself.

Joh 17:26  and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." 

1Co 8:5  For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 
6  yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. 

Your argument is not with me, but with God whose name is Jehovah. We don't know the exact, correct spelling because it was lost to us by the Jews, but suffice it to say, god is not a name, it is a title. See my post above, since I already answered this question before you asked it.

The name of the Father is revealed in the name of the son, which anglicized is Jesus or in the Hebrew, Yeshuah, which means Yah saves.
If you know Jesus, then you know the father, if you deny the father you deny the son and so forth.

Act_4:12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

[KingdomBuilder]

I, personally, am much more okay with using God's name (the one referenced in Jesus' name, the one referenced everytime Angels were revealed saying "Hallelujah!", etc etc) despite not having complete and utter certainty to the complete and utterly correct pronounciation. If you can only make God's name about spelling and pronunciation, you're 1/2 way to becoming a legalistic Holy-Namer.. And it'd be best for you to keep with generic terms.

Im fine with saying and using "Jesus"- it's a transliteration, and not even a good one. I'm fine with it because it is how we pronounce the proper, formal name of our Redeemer.
To completely throw in the towel because we have an anglicized transliteration is foolish. If we throw out Jehovah's proper name because of it, why not stop using "Jesus"? plenty of titles we could give him. And yes, we do give him those, but we also give him the honor of keeping his name on our lips.
Both proper nouns. Both names begotten in the Scripture. Both directly given by the Father. Both desired to be used.
A name is a name.. Why play games about it? Don't we know what names are and what they are for?

[KingdomBuilder]

In English, saying "God" means the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a proper noun. The word "God" is nothing at all like calling me "man".

Should it be, though? Every time I hear someone swear "oh my God!" I sure don't think they're talking about Jehovah.
If you had an original Merriam Webster dictionary you could clearly see the consensus: Jehovah is the proper name of God. God is the pronoun.
An English dictionary for and by English folks.

[Josh]

The name of the Father is revealed in the name of the son, which anglicized is Jesus or in the Hebrew, Yeshuah, which means Yah saves.
If you know Jesus, then you know the father, if you deny the father you deny the son and so forth.

Act_4:12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

I've spent plenty of time around Jesus-only Pentecostals, and I frankly don't see some magical good fruits that come out of being obsessed with Jesus' name.

I think it's a lot more important to actually follow Jesus than to be razor-sharp focused on what exactly his name is. And I happen to believe in the Trinity, which means that I don't think God's name is "Jesus", but rather than I think the Son of God's name is "Jesus". The Holy Spirit doesn't even have a name at all - yet he is coequal to Jesus and the Father and just as important in the life of a Christian.

What's important to me is what the Holy Spirit does in my life when I listen to him, not figuring out exactly what his name is and being careful to incant it when dunking people in swimming pools.

[Josh]

In English, saying "God" means the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a proper noun. The word "God" is nothing at all like calling me "man".

Should it be, though? Every time I hear someone swear "oh my God!" I sure don't think they're talking about Jehovah.
If you had an original Merriam Webster dictionary you could clearly see the consensus: Jehovah is the proper name of God. God is the pronoun.
An English dictionary for and by English folks.

I think the Jehovah's Witnesses have firmly established that obsession with God's name is not the path to following God. And I disagree that Jehovah is the "proper name of God". There's no theological consensus on that.

[KingdomBuilder]

I think the Jehovah's Witnesses have firmly established that obsession with God's name is not the path to following God. And I disagree that Jehovah is the "proper name of God". There's no theological consensus on that.

As mentioned earlier, JW's have messed things up for many others.. that's just where we are at. You seem to be presumptuous in assuming that all who seek to use Jehovah are "obsessed" with God's name. You're also acting like the Jehovah's Witnesses are a disaster of a church, and that it is somehow tied to the fact they feel conviction to use the Name. I disagree that JW's are a disastrous church of some kind, and their areas of falsity I don't attribute to their use of the Name.

You're misinterpreting my "proper name of God". Not claiming any theological consensus that the "Jehovah" spelling/ pronunciation is best. I'm saying it is proper in the regards to being a proper noun. It's no pronoun.
Yahweh, Jehovah, Yehowah, etc. etc. are are valiant, commendable efforts in my book to re-institute the use of God's given name to His chosen people.

You've made it clear that you have no intent on using any of the Divine Name variations. That's fine.. you're choice, but why insist on trying to discourage others in it? Needn't be an expert on everything.

[Josh]

My opinion of a focus on the divine name is that it is a distraction from actually following Jesus and doing what he says.

The concept in the modern era of someone's "name" is very different from what someone's "name" meant to a 1st century Jewish person. Back then, names were embued with a lot of meaning - typically derived from common nouns.

Modern names don't have much meaning to us and most are transliterations, and don't have any meaning beyond being a unique utterance.