Information Related to "Questions and Answers - Apr/Jun 2005"
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Question: Do you believe in using the Heavenly Father's true name "Yahweh" and the Savior's true name "Yahshua the Messiah"?
We do not believe God requires us to use only the terms Yahweh and Yahshua in reference to the Father and Jesus Christ, as if only these two terms spelled and pronounced exactly correctly constitute the only "true" names of God and Jesus Christ.The original text of the Bible contains not only Hebrew but also Greek, Aramaic and Chaldean. The references to God that are included are from those languages.
Even in the Hebrew it isn't possible to be precisely accurate, because the consonantal pronunciation (YHVH or YHWH) has been lost. Also, since the original Hebrew writings included no vowels, we don't really know the vowels that should go between the consonants or even whether the name has two or three syllables (for example, whether Yahweh, Yahuweh or Yehowah).
Furthermore, there are no ancient manuscripts of the New Testament that have Hebrew names for God in place of the Greek names.
Christ used the name for God that was commonly understood by His audience. It is reasonable to assume that the apostles in Acts 2 used commonly accepted terms as they spoke in different languages to those from various regions who were hearing the truth of Jesus Christ's role for the first time.
As to His own name, the Oxford Dictionary records that "Jesus" comes from the Latin Iesus, which comes from the Greek Iesous, which is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yehoshua or Yeshua (Joshua).
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