Letter
From: <sleeper6@ cybrguset.com>
Date: March 26, 2003
Subject: Re: Your Website
To: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dear Confused;
I just read your list of errors and profoundly disagree. I hope the Father above will forgive you in the end.
I have been what you call a Sacred Name believer for a good many years and never have I encountered the group I worship with claim any of the errors you list on your home page.
Error #1. Do you not think that no one on the face of the earth can read and speak Hebrew. Therefore coming up with the true pronunciation of Yahweh's Name. Maybe you need to visit some top Universitys and talk to some theology professors.
This is total nonsense.
Error#2. I have several version's of the Bible and use the King James Version the most. Do you think that ONLY changing the names of the Father and Son back to the Original is corrupting the Bible.
This is total nonsense.
Error#3. If you argue that the Saviour was not Hebrew you know very little about ancient Biblical history.
Error#4. This one is a new one on me I've never once heard this doctrine.
Error#5. If anyone is teaching this they are blatantly wrong.
I don't usually respond to this because I feel if someone has to bash people like you do on your web site you
are not following scripture any way. May Yahweh forgive you for labeling all Sacred Name believers under one
definition. Nothing short of prejudice.
Editor's Reply
Date: March 28, 2003
To: Christopher C Schlieper
From: [Gary Mink] This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Subject: Website
Hello Christopher,
Thank you for responding to the information presented on the Sacred Name Movement Errors Website. While the essays take pointed issue with numerous errors taught by many, if not most, sacred name movement teachers, it has never been our practice to “bash” individuals within the movement. Upon the occasions when we have felt compelled to stand against the words or practices of individuals, we have done so with care not to divulge their names. A couple of cases in point are the personal experience story and the open letter to JT. But there are numerous other examples. We have conceded exceptions to this practice in the reviews of the sacred name revisions of the Scriptures. In these reviews we have given the names and other information regarding the revisers of these bibles.
Regarding your comments:
Error #1. Neither the spoken nor written Hebrew language, like other languages, has remained static over the thousands of years of their existence. Written vowel points were not introduced into Hebrew until over two thousand years after God discussed his name with Moses at the burning bush. While Moses recorded the name, he recorded no vowels with it. Since vowels are the guides to pronunciation, how can one be absolutely certain how Moses pronounced the name?
I will be more than happy to visit some top universities with you and together we can investigate the matter of the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.
Please, permit me to give two witnesses from two such top universities.
David Crystal, in his monumental work The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, published by Cambridge University Press, tells us “…the true pronunciation of YHWH is quite lost.”
Then there is Professor Everett Fox, associate professor of Judaica and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the introduction to his translation of the Torah, The Schoken Bible: Volume I. The Five Books of Moses, published by Schoken Books, New York, 1995, he calls the question of the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton an “unsolved question.” Then he directly states “Both old and new attempts to recover the "correct" pronunciation of the Hebrew name have not succeeded; neither the sometimes-heard "Jehovah" nor the-standard scholarly "Yahweh" can be conclusively proven.”
Error #2. We have no problem with scholars who put one of the numerous possible pronunciations of YHWH into translations of the Old Testament scriptures. The Hebrew manuscripts have YHWH. It is an abomination for these teachers to put Yahweh, Yahvah, or some other imagined “original” pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton into the Old Testament scriptures and fail to inform the readers that this is just a guess at how the name might have been originally pronounced.
Dr. J. B. Rotherham, a real scholar who had the kind of scholarly integrity sacred name bible revisers need to emulate, was not remiss in this area. When he chose to put Yahweh into his Old Testament translation, The Emphasized Bible, he was quick to inform his readers in the introduction, that Yahweh was the pronunciation he considered to be the best among the possible pronunciations. As he said on page 25 of his introduction, “The form ‘Yahweh’ is here adopted as practically the best.” It is noteworthy that Rotherham did not put Yahweh into his New Testament, it not being found in any of the manuscripts of this work.
Yet the sacred name bible revisers do not hesitate to wedge the name Yahweh into the New Testament. Opening any sacred name bible easily shows the many instances of this. However, not a single manuscript of the New Testament can be shown to have this name anywhere even once.
Error #3. We have never argued that the Savior was not Hebrew. However, we have conclusively demonstrated that the written word of God was originally in Greek. We further argue that no one has ever been able to produce the Savior’s name written in Hebrew.
This question arises with everyone who wants to be a sacred name teacher. They teach that the Master was Hebrew and that he therefore “would have had a Hebrew name.” But, they are never quite able to demonstrate what that Hebrew name might have been. If you have found the Savior’s name written in Hebrew, the world of biblical scholarship will be happy to know about it. Please send this information to me. I have been asking sacred name teachers for it for many years and will finally be glad to obtain it.
Error #4. Every sacred name person believes it.
Error #5. Indeed! They are “blatantly wrong.” That is what the essay on this false doctrine shows.
Thank you for your interest and concern for the work being done on the Sacred Name Movement Errors website and for your concern. We hope you will take time to read more of the essays presented there.
Peace to you and to your household.
Gary Mink