Talk:Yahweh

Seeker, again

Precisely when was the name "Yahweh"first used in the English Language? Since there is presently a Wikipedia Article titled "Yahweh" why doesn't some editor try to explain on the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh precisely when the English word Yahweh first appeared in the English language. Is is my understanding that the name "Yahweh" never even existed as an English word until the middle of the 19th century, although the German word "Jahveh" existed in Gesenius's German Lexicon in 1815 A.D. Why doesn't some editor go into some precise detail about the German name "Jahveh" which was first created in 1815 A.D. by the Hebrew Scholar Gesenius, and the then follow up with the history of the English word "Yahweh" which was first used in the middle of the 19th century, and has had a long history since then as it is still being used in 2011 A.D. There appears to be absolutely no known history of the German word "Jahveh" before 1815 A.D, and I pesonally know of no documented use of the English name "Yahweh" before approximately 1863 A.D. Does any editor of Wikipedia know of any verifiable use of the word English "Yahweh" before 1863 A.D. All Wikipedia asks for is verification that the English name "Yahweh" was used anywhere on the planet earth before approximately 1863 A.D. If no verification exists, this article has no right to claim that the English name "Yahweh" ever existed before 1863 A.D. Seeker02421 (talk) 13:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Your considerations about spelling and usage are irrelevant to this article. Your only aim seems to be to demonstrate that the deity referred to in the Bible is not the deity worshiped today by the abrahamic religions. That is just silly. The identification of a deity does in no way depend on spelling, pronunciation or even using variations of the name as such.

And after 2 years of you constantly re-posting your pointless stuff, I really think it is time for another editing ban. ≡ CUSH ≡ 15:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Seeker, even though I too disagree with the present scholarly consensus of pronouncing the Tetra as "Yahweh", as has been pointed out many times, this article has nothing really to do with the pronunciation, and even if "Yahweh" is the incorrect pronunciation, that spelling/pronunciation acts as a reference (a conceptual anchor of sorts) to the deity in question here. In a sense, the scholarly reference could have been the rabbinic term "hashshem" and that would have served the same purpose as using "Yahweh" in this article. In short, the actual pronunciation of the Tetra (how this deity's name is pronounced) is beside the point. If you would like to pursue your argument further, it would make more sense to do so from the Tetra article using legitimate sources to back up your claim. Doing it from here is more or less pointless. — al-Shimoni (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi al-Shimoni

I've been working in the background.

I have a question. It seems to me that the same group of Wikipedia Editors that want to write an article on this Wikipedia Article:Yahweh, are the same group of Wikipedia Editors that spent a lot of effort recently creating the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh (Canaanite deity).

Is there any problem with writing your article on Yahweh (Canaanite deity).

OR

Is it possible that all the editors that were involved in creating The Wikipedia Article (Canaanite deity) could start a new Wikipedia Article specifically for discussing "YAHWEH" as taught in the Roman Catholic Church New Jerusalem Bible.This new Article would of necessity have to welcome Evangelical Christians who honor God by the name Yahweh, but hopefully could exclude Sacred Name Ministries who honor the name "Yahweh"

I am throwing an idea up in the air, and certainly any newly created Wikipedia Articles would have to be approved by Wikipedia.

FWIW

Seeker02421 (talk) 17:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Another question for all.

How many [IF ANY ] Wikipedia Editors [ when the smoke finally clears ]

would like to have a legitimate Wikipedia Article in place that would allow discussions on a Christian "YAHWEH" as He is found in the Roman Catholic New Jerusalem Bible. I realize that not all Christians approve of the Roman Catholic Church, but right-or-wrong, The Roman Catholic Church has published a widely distributed bible that approves the name "Yahweh".

Whether "Yahweh" is or is not God's correct name, does not appear to be a major question at this time.

Seeker02421 (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that you turn up every couple of months an completely mess up an article about a subject that touches a religious issue, especially this Yahweh article? Whom do you seek to impress with your insubstantial rants about the identification of the biblical deity?

And why can't you adhere to the standard pattern of adding a comment to a talk page, and instead always break up the text flow and render it almost illegible?

Your edits about spelling, pronunciation and your assumed incoherency between YHWH and Yahweh have been rolled back every single time. Will you please accept that your edits serve no encyclopedic or educational purpose. Just leave it alone. ≡ CUSH ≡ 19:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Seeker, I hadn't seen the "Yahweh (Canaanite deity)" article until just now, just a brief glimpse at it after reading your mention of it. I'll have to look at it more closely before I really could comment on it in any way.

What do you mean by "your article" in your other question?

I'm not sure there is really much of a reason to create a separate article for Roman Catholic Yahweh/Yahowah, as the New Testament does not mention a Yahweh/Yahowah/YHWH by name (neither within Greek sources nor Latin Vulgate), nor is there much focus on Him in the New Testament (unless you take a trinitarian viewpoint and make Jesus equate to god). Catholic/Christian/New-Testament version of god wouldn't have a Wiki page with "Yahweh" within the title, but they could have a "God in Christianity" or a "The Trinity" article. So, no, no RC Yahweh article (and focusing on NJB translation is likely a bit fringe for Wiki). How much of that question of yours was rhetorical? — al-Shimoni (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi al-Shimoni. You wrote "I'm not sure there is really much of a reason to create a separate article for Roman Catholic Yahweh/Yahowah, as the New Testament does not mention a Yahweh/Yahowah/YHWH by name (neither within Greek sources nor Latin Vulgate), nor is there much focus on Him in the New Testament (unless you take a trinitarian viewpoint and make Jesus equate to god)."

Heck Al, there is no verifiable evidence that the Hebrew name Yahweh exists in any extant Hebrew Bible in the world, yet this Wikipedia Article:Yahweh still exists, as if the name "Yahweh" is a name that actually existed in the Hebrew Bible. Nobody seems to question that the present editors of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh have never posted verifiable evidence that the name "Yahweh" ever existed on the planet earth before the middle 19th century.

What Wikipedia moderator is ever going to question why this present article does not present verifiabile evidence that the name "Yahweh" ever existed. No Wikipedia moderator that I am aware of ever criticised the obvious lack of verifiable evidence for the existance of the name "Yahweh", before Gesenius created the German spelling "Jahveh" in 1815.A.D. Nobody seems to care that verification of when the name "Yahweh" was first known to have been used on the planet earth, can not be found in this Article.

Actually I wasn't very clear on what I hoped some of the present editors of the Wikipedia Article:Yahweh might chose to do voluntarilly, to make up for what a-p-p-e-ars to have been their total "hijacking" of a previous "completely legitimate, and well written Wikipedia Article titled "Yahweh" and their t-o-t-a-l deletion of each and every word that was written in that article apparently attempting to leave no record in Wikipedia that such an article was ever written.

I was hoping that one or more of the Wikipedia editors of the present article, that was involved in the total deletion of the previous Legitimate Wikipedia Article:Yahweh, might have thought it would be the right thing to do to write a new Wikipedia Article about "Yahweh", possibly using a slightly different title. That way two well written Wikipedia Article would exist side by side for editors with different ideas of what a Wikipedia Article:Yahweh should cover.

However there may be an easier method to deal with the issue of restoring a previous Wikipedia Article that was totally deleted by a group of Wikipedia Editors who apparently did not approve of how it been wriiten, and did not wish to take the time to legimately write a new article, which would have been totally approved by Wikipedia, and would have covered precisely the information that they are trying to cover on this Present Wikipedia Article:Yahweh.

Al Shimoni. Do you think that it should have been the duty of Wikipedia Moderators to have dealt with the total deletion of a fully written Wikipedia Article:Yahweh by the current Wikipedi Editors who openly deleted every word that had been skillfully written by previous legitimate aeditors of the present Wikipedia Article

While the present editors of this Wikipedeia Article:Yahweh mistakenly believed that they had destroved all evidence of the well written text that previously existed in this present Wikipedia Article, which bears precicely the same name it had when it was first created, probably over 5-6 years ago. they are mistaken. Several copies of the previous Article exist, and actually has been slightly edited by new editors who believed that the previous Wikipedia Article:Yahweh was worthy of being preserved, and believed that they could improve what had previously been written without totally destroying and starting all over with a new sheet of paper!!!!!

P.S. al-Shimoni. Do you happen to know someone named Doug Belot, who thinks very much like you do.

Seeker02421 (talk) 15:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Seeker, nobody is deleting anything. All versions of the article, going right back to its creation in 2001, can be found in the article history.

The question of the proper pronounciation of the name is discussed -- at very considerable length -- in the article Tetragrammaton at the section Tetragrammaton#Pronunciation. This article is not the place to repeat that presentation.

At the moment the lead says:

The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew יהוה, transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the actual pronunciation is disputed.

That is a sufficent summary of the position for the lead, which has to concisely summarise the whole article. More detail is not appropriate for the lead; and the lead as a whole is as long as it should be -- it should not be made any longer.

Therefore, please, no more edits like this one: [1]. I trust you agree. Jheald (talk) 17:37, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS:BOLDTITLE#Format_of_the_first_sentence

The lead section (also known as the introduction, lead, or lede[1]) of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of its most important aspects.

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points— including any prominent controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject should usually be established in the first few sentences.

While consideration should be given to creating interest in reading more of the article, the lead nonetheless should not "tease" the reader by hinting at—but not explaining—important facts that will appear later in the article. The lead should contain no more than four paragraphs, must be carefully sourced as appropriate, and should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view to invite a reading of the full article.

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth

At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability the following text will be found::

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

To show that it is not original research, all material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source. But in practice not everything need actually be attributed. This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation, and that the source directly support the material in question.[1]

Seeker02421 (talk) 14:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yahweh disambiguation page

Yahweh (disambiguation) currently has a link to Yahweh (Canaanite deity) but nothing to this article. I don't want to touch it. Up to you lot. PiCo (talk) 07:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. First line of such a dab page should point to the primary article, ie this article, being the article without the word "disambiguation". Jheald (talk) 11:31, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

The pointless disambiguation page was introduced by religionists to create an artificial distinction between biblical Yahweh and Canaanite Yahweh. That's the same as saying that Germans and French each have their own Jesus. Dbachmann and Seeker seek to establish a kind of uniqueness of the biblical deity for the entire ANE context. But of course that's without substance. ≡ CUSH ≡ 10:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Dab is clearly no "religionist" trying to "create and artificial distinction between biblical Yahweh and Canaanite Yahweh". Cush this mentality of yours is exactly why your editing of this and related pages inevitably becomes disruptive. WP:BATTLEGROUND is probably apropos here. You may not agree with Dab but he's clearly trying to improve the encyclopedia per his academic understanding of the subject, which I can tell you from my vantage point is not remotely "religionist". There is, of course, a huge difference between the cult of Yahweh in ancient Canaan, and the evolving deity of Judaism. Yahweh (Canaanite deity), does not, despite your claims, completely separate the two deities. It links them in fact. I'm not sure Dab's way of dealing with the issue was the best, but his conceptualization of the differences between the two (one the focus of an ancient cult and the other an evolving deity of a seperate literate society) seem spot on. I truly believe that it would be better for the Wiki if you stepped back from this and related entries. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree, Dab is not a "religionist." PiCo (talk) 16:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If not, then why the move of the page to "God of Israel" ? This was an attempt to force his religious POV that ancient Israel was distinct from everybody else in the region in regard to the deity worshipd. The only source for this POV is the interpretation of the Tanakh as a history book that accurately describes political circumstances and accurately describes what the various peoples of the ANE believed in. But there is no reliable source that provides any substantial scientific evidence for a division between Canaanites and Israelites whatsoever. Archaeology and historical research do provide the overall picture of a more or less homogeneous and continuous culture for Canaan and environs including the time frame that Judaism assigns the whole Israel thing to. ≡ CUSH ≡ 19:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Dab is a gentleman. If you want to see a real religionist at work, have a look at this.PiCo (talk) 06:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I am actually doing my best fighting the religionists on this page, who are trying to keep this page in as useless a state as possible, or just full of sectarian nonsense. A little help please? Can we agree already that this page is a train wreck and opt for WP:TNT? It's going to turn out that way in any case, it's just a matter of wasting a few more months with futile disputes. --dab (𒁳) 22:27, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

No I don't agree; and things aren't helped by your constantly destabilising the page by trying to change its focus. Jheald (talk) 22:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

destabilising? This is a joke. Here is what is going on: I must assume Jheald is an adherent of the "Sacred Name Movement" and is trying to pretend that the name "Yahweh" is somehow in common use when talking about the God of the Hebrew Bible. This is ridiculous. This is a minor fringe movement within US Christianity. Writing the article about the Judeo-Christian God from their perspective is ridiculous.

What I do not get is why the supposed secular watchdogs around here (such as Cush) play along with this game. I am tired of talking to a wall. Jheald is here to push his sad religious pov. Cush is here to show how anti-religious he is. There is no way any kind of sense is going to arise from such a situation. The upshot remains that this article is broken and needs to be split up, or rewritten. There are plenty of people who would be able to do this if Jheald could just be stopped from turning this into a childish pissing contest for five minutes. --dab (𒁳) 22:43, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about? How is "Yahweh" only used by a "minor fringe movement within US Christianity" when it is the common name used all over Europe (in varying spelling in different languages of course)? Any academic work I have come across and that refers in some way to the biblical deity uses the name Yahweh. And even in US media it is commonly used to refer to the biblical deity. ≡ CUSH ≡ 09:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec)We have, in my view, a consensus for what the focus for this page should be, reflected in the lead as of this edit. It is a tight, concise, effectively written lead that effectively summarises the main points.

There is clear consensus that this article should present both the God of the Bible, who the Bible calls YHWH, the modern conventional scholarly rendering of which is Yahweh, and also what scholars have theorised about possible the historical background.

That's a focus that is intellectually coherent, is what the articles that link here expects, and is what consensus - as twice explicitly tested - supports.

It's an entirely workable scope. It's one the article actually doesn't do a bad job of presenting. Yes, IMO the material on how God is presented in the Bible could be substantially improved; material on the literary analysis of that presentation should be restored; and there are at least a couple of different lines being presented in the historical section. So there is work to be done.

But that work can't even start when you are repeatedly setting out to destabilise the article's scope. So, please stop trying to rescope the article -- or at the very least show that you have established consensus here first; and then, maybe, it can move forwards. Jheald (talk) 22:48, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. dab's edits are probably best described as vandalism. The assertion that only the sacred name movement uses the name Yahweh is absurd, as the name is all over the scholarly literature, both in secular scholarship of the ANE and also widespread among the faith based scholarship: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant. I have restored a lead that summarizes the article and does not take tangents or delve into issues that should be discussed on the talk page.ANE.Scholar (talk) 23:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Jheald comment about the lede and the topic of the article I think is fairly right-on. Concerning the content of the lede, I would just note that the 3rd paragraph (which begins with "The Bible describes Yahweh as") should be rewritten without the bible quotes. Simply, this paragraph consists of several sentences that state an aspect/description/something about YHWH, and then immediately follows it up with a quote which reiterates what was just said. This is pointless, and harkens back to preacher sermon techniques, not encyclopædic conventions.

I might clarify Jheald's statement of the article's purpose as found in the lede (and earlier debate, I might add),

The article is about:

• The primary (if not sole) god of the ancient people of Judah and Israel
• The scholarly/critical interpretation of that god, as in what they view as his origins, similarities, and other aspects of him in relation to the social/historical/political/religious background from which he "emerged" (however you want to interpret that quoted word) and possible relation or derivation from other deities from which early Judah/Israel had contact
• The article may touch on how the view of that god is interpreted post-Jesus (regardless of whether J-man existed or not), such as how rabbinic and other modern descendants of YHWH-ism (for lack of better term) interpret/regard this deity, or Christianity's and Islaam's adherents view of that god in relation to their religion.

The first 2 points should have equal opportunity to share equally within the article. Due to the current lack of archæological material (although, there is a limited some), much of point one will be limited to books found within the bible. Point two must also rely on limited archæological material, however, it has more leeway in guessing the situation by including material from neighboring nations (with several grains of salt), as well as its ability to attempt to "read between the lines" of the biblical text, rather than a more "on the face" interpretation that point one would rely on.

As Jheald mentioned, the article already closely complies to this outline, but we need to do some work to clean up the article (particularly the excessive and unnecessary use of quotations — this is an encyclopædic article, not a sermon/mass).

If one is wondering why I bother to expand on Jheald's comment to such a degree (although I could have gone much further), it is in hope that the points are made more clear to some people here, as well as a hope that if there is some misunderstanding, the above elaboration may help bring them forward for clarifying/discussing.

I might remind some here that WP isn't concerned about the truth, just what is verifiable, published, etc (for example, "Lord of the Rings" characters are entirely fictitious, but that doesn't bar them, their descriptions, etc, from inclusion in Wikipedia, even if the only source material is JRR Tolkien's books). — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Made some changes to the lede. It has the same content (a few words changed, but not the idea of the original words). I appended what was the 3rd paragraph as a sentence in para 1. The quotes are still there, but are now part of the citation. There was no point in having the quotes there, is just repeated what was said and there was already a citation for each assertion made in the paragraph. It now reads better, better flow. — al-Shimoni (talk) 02:40, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The usual understanding is that YHWH became the sole god of Judaism in a small circle around Ezekiel and 2nd Isaiah during the exile; prior to that YHWH had been the national god of Judah and previously Israel, but not the sole deity (Jeremiah makes that clear). After the return to Jerusalem, however and whenever that happened (the opening chapters of Ezra can't be taken literally, but clearly something happened), this group, with Persian support, gained control of Jerusalem and the Temple (they were made up of the priests and scribes in exile) and imposed their reforms on the Judahites who had stayed behind. There's a good deal of archaeological evidence to support this (the pillar figurines, for example - these are little fertility-goddess statuettes, very common in Judah right up to the 586 period, totally absent afterwards) and a great deal of discussion by bible-scholars (notably Albertz and Grabbe, but many others). It was also during this post-return period that the name of God seems to have been replaced with Adonai. There are many good sources listed at the end of our article, but they're not being used well. PiCo (talk) 01:07, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Many Wikipedia articles on literary works, characters, or biographies contain quotes, including quotes in the lede, such as the articles on William Blake, Karl Marx, and many of the Shakespearean Sonnets. The second paragraph summarizes the Hebrew Bible’s description of the character. The subsequent paragraphs in the lede summarize other issues treated in the article, such as the history of Yahweh worship and the views of various traditions and scholars. Together, these paragraphs accomplish the purpose a lede section.Corinne68 (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Many articles on history and literature topics are well served by the inclusion of ample quotations. Hammurabi's code, Akkadian Empire, Hannibal, and United States Declaration of Independence are a few examples among many. ANE.Scholar (talk) 14:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Is this where discussion is taking place about the proposed split? If so, it is not clear to the curious passerby. I recommend you start a discussion that focuses on the split that is proposed. My question about the split is this... Aren't YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, and others all the same god? A person's choice of that god's commandments (or what have you, not a scholar) makes no difference on the god. God does not change because of your belief structure surrounding God. Therefore, the different religions, who accept different parts of different books as gospel, are arguing about the same god. They're arguing that their understanding of God is the correct one, but that does not change the god in question. If the subject of the article is God, then we have one subject, that means one article. My understanding, correct me if you will. 134.29.231.11 (talk) 20:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

History of the Bible - new subsection

I've added a new subsection at the top of the section on Yahweh in the bible. I've done this because I think it's important to explain to the reader the context in which Yahweh appears - the bible itself has a history and a point of view, and one cannot understand "Yahweh" (the quote marks mean I'm talking about the Bible's depiction of the god Yahweh) without understanding the historical context. At the moment there are no sources cited, but that's easily done later. I just want some feedback/discussion on the idea of having this section. PiCo (talk) 01:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow, 666 characters. How ominous... ≡ CUSH ≡ 19:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I think something like this is appropriate, but in my view probably it should come after the presentation of what the Bible says. Otherwise it might seem to some a bit like getting in some editorial contextualising from a particular direction first, before letting people read a straight summary of what it says in the book. Putting a discussion of scholarly views on the Bible after the biblical summary, though, I think should be entirely unobjectionable -- after all, it's where we've previously had our Documentary Hypothesis section.

The kind of material in your latest paragraph in the discussion immediately above (01:07, 8 Feb), about the time of Ezra, might also be a good fit here; as might quickly reviewing ideas of syncretism from different literary sources that were so much part of the inspiration of the DH (the claimed different characterisation of God in the parallel narratives where the name Elohim is used &c).

In terms of tone, I'm not sure I'd be quite so definite "this happened, then that happened, then the other happened" -- after all, this is just a reconstruction by scholars, so some humility might be appropriate. To put this in perspective, a rabbi would still be excommunicated from the most mainstream modern orthodox group of synagogues in the UK for saying this (cf Louis Jacobs) -- never mind the groups that are even more traditionalist; so in the interests of long-term stability of the article, it's probably better to say "X has said this, which has found widespread acceptance" rather than bluntly "this happened". Somebody receptive to the scholarly view won't even notice the difference; but that way we avoid somebody hostile to it taking offence and us then thrashing wording out for a week. (Along the same lines, I preferred "one theory is..." for why Yahweh ceased to be said, rather than presenting the idea as fact, even if you can indeed show it does have overwhelming scholarly acceptance as per the previous discussion section; ... also, I have to admit, it was only when it was flagged up with the extra words that I actually noticed that this interesting and plausible theory was in the article!)

So: yes to the discussion; some patches maybe to the tone; and maybe place it after rather than before the bible section. Jheald (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

On pre or post and editorial contextualization, I'm inclined to disagree and say that it seems it would still be better to have it before since, in either position, some kind of bias (even bias out of ignorance — lack of knowledge, not the derogatory sense) will be in play in the reader's mind. Providing some kind of context at-first would, IMHO, would be the better option, the lesser of two evils, as long as it is NPOV.

I agree with your paragraph that begins with speaking about tone, and your "so in the interests of long-term stability of the article". :) This would be more in tune with it being NPOV, although PiCo, I think, often does a fairly good job on being NPOV. — al-Shimoni (talk) 05:15, 9 February 2011 (UTC)