Tag Archives: YHWH

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints (Mormons) & the Titles of God: Almighty God, mighty god, Jehovah, Elohim

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This is a continuation of an earlier GFTM mini-series addressing Jehovah’s Witnesses, but let’s include another religious group that may come knocking on your door…

Was Jesus “a god”? Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: John 1:1

How Can Jesus Be “Firstborn of All Creation” Yet Eternal God? Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: Colossians 1:15-19.

If Jesus is “Only-Begotten,” How is He Eternal God? Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: John 3:6 (& 1:18)

KNOCK, KNOCK. J.W., WHO? ALMIGHTY GOD VS. MIGHTY GOD

Sometimes more savvy Jehovah’s Witnesses will point out that theos and the Hebrew equivalent elohim, which are usually translated “God,” are titles that can be also applied to powerful humans or spiritual beings. They’ll appeal to Jesus’ words in John 10:34-36 about Psalm 82:1, 6-7 (“Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?”) to show that some beings that aren’t the one-and-only God can be called (lower-case-“g”) “gods.” They’ll point out that within Christian scripture the apostle Paul even calls the evil spiritual being Satan “the god [theos] of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are correct that “god” (theos, elohim) is a title, not God’s personal name. (And don’t forget we can’t look for capitalization in the Greek and Hebrew to denote proper names.) And where I would agree with Jehovah’s Witnesses that every use of theos and elohim don’t necessarily refer to the one-and-only God of the Bible (though this is plainly the exception rather than the norm), there are still three big challenges to trying to use these passages to justify the Jehovah’s Witness view of Jesus as a special creation who is higher than the angels but lower than God.

The first challenge can be brought into the light by simply asking Jehovah’s Witnesses a question: Are Satan and these other “gods” false gods or true gods? I’d be surprised if any Jehovah’s Witness would answer, “True gods.” Thus, according to Jehovah’s Witness thinking, Satan and these others are false gods. An interesting follow up question is, “Is Jesus a false god or true god?” The Jehovah’s Witness should answer, “True.” Now, doesn’t that mean Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in two Gods — Jehovah and Jesus? Yet, Jehovah’s Witnesses insist they believe in only one God.

The second challenge has to do with how Jehovah’s Witnesses may respond to this first set of questions. Jehovah’s Witnesses make a distinction that Jehovah is the “Almighty God” and Jesus is the “mighty god.” Again, I would spotlight the issue with a question: If Jesus is “mighty god,” how is he different from Satan and these other false “mighty gods”? Clearly, according to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own beliefs, Jesus is unique from God, but also unique from these other “gods.” So, it appears the Jehovah’s Witnesses have invented a category to place Jesus in that doesn’t exist in the Bible. 

If your Jehovah’s Witness friend doesn’t find this convicting, you can simply point him or her to passages that show this sharp distinction between Jehovah as “Almighty God” and Jesus as “mighty god” isn’t in the Bible, because “Jehovah” is sometimes called “Mighty God.”

When you see “the LORD” in all caps in the English Old Testament, the Hebrew originally reads YHWH or “Yahweh,” which is God’s proper name. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ version of the Bible, the New World Translation, replaces all of these with “Jehovah.” It’s not a bad idea to show them these verses in their own Bible, but I’ll continue to use the ESV translation here:

In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD [“Jehovah”], the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty [gibbor] God [el].  (Isaiah 10:20–21)

…I prayed to the LORD [“Jehovah”], saying: “Ah, Lord [adonai] GOD [“Jehovah”]! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty [gibbor] God [el], whose name is the LORD [“Jehovah’] of hosts…” (Jeremiah 32:16–18)

Yes, the LORD (“Jehovah” in the Jehovah’s Witnesses New World Translation, but “Yahweh” in the Hebrew) is also called “mighty God.”

 

KNOCK, KNOCK. L.D.S., WHO? WHO’S JEHOVAH ANYWAY?

Please allow me to address our LDS (Latter-day Saint a.k.a. Mormon) friends. Afterall, I don’t want our Jehovah’s Witness friends to feel like I’m picking on them by only signaling them out. Jehovah’s Witnesses put a lot of religious significance in knowing the name of the one true God, which they say is “Jehovah.” Since they deny the Trinity, they distinguish Jesus from Jehovah, making Jesus a lower-case “god” — not Jehovah, but an elohim. Interestingly, Latter-day Saints do the exact opposite: According to LDS beliefs, Jesus is “Jehovah” and God the Father is Elohim.

First, what’s up with the hangup some religious groups have with the name “Jehovah”? It’s been well-established that “Jehovah” is a mispronunciation. Can we move on? 

Secondly, we only have to look at a few passages of the Bible to see that this sharp LDS distinction between “Jehovah” and Elohim is mistaken.

To begin, in Genesis, Jacob refers to Issac’s God (the God of Abraham) as “the LORD your God” — that is, “Yahweh [“Jehovah”] your Elohim” (Genesis 27:20). In Deuteronomy 6:4, we find one of the most important religious confessions of the Jewish people: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD [“Jehovah”] our God [elohim], the LORD [“Jehovah”] is one.”

Next, during the same exact event where God appears to Moses in the burning bush and gives his proper name, we find:

Then Moses said to God [elohim], “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God [elohim] of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God [elohim] said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD [Yahweh, “Jehovah,” literally “I am”], the God [elohim] of your fathers, the God [elohim] of Abraham, the God [elohim] of Isaac, and the God [elohim] of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:13-15)

With this, sometimes we find the name Yahweh (“Jehovah”) paired up with elohim when speaking of the one-and-only God. Isaiah 10:23-24 calls God “the Lord GOD of hosts.” In Hebrew, “the Lord GOD” is “adonai Yahweh.” [1] We see the same exact thing — “adonai Yahweh” — in other examples in Ezekiel 34: 15, 17, and 20.

Finally, LDS will affirm that the famous prophecy in Isaiah 9:6 is about the birth of Jesus, yet in it we find Jesus called “Mighty God,” that is, “Might Elohim” [2]:

For to us a child is born… and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God… (Isaiah 9:6)

So, just like the sharp distinction Jehovah’s Witnesses make between “Almighty God” and “mighty god” doesn’t hold up to biblical scrutiny, neither does the LDS distinction between “Jehovah” and Elohim.

[1]  adon, a form of adonai.

[2] Literally, in Hebrew, “gibbor el.” El is singular for elohim. 

Was Jesus “a god”? Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: John 1:1

 

How Can Jesus be “Firstborn of All Creation” yet Eternal God? Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: Colossians 1:15-19

 

If Jesus is “Only-Begotten,” How is He Eternal God? Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: John 3:16 (& 1:18)

Confidence in Christ v2

Bible Secrets Re-revealed! Did God Have a Wife?

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**Did God have a wife named Asherah? Was she edited out of the Old Testament?**

SERIES INTRO: Have the right narrator and ominous music and anything can sound scandalous.  Recently, I watched several episodes of the History Channel’s Bible Secrets Revealed TV show.  It was amusing but troubling at the same time since these sort of sensationalist shows aren’t about history or education, but preying on people’s lack of knowledge.  The sort of one-sided, half-information thrown around on these TV shows is sure to resurface.  So, here are some quick responses to some questions that might arise from such quality TV programing.

 

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YAHWEH & HIS ASHERAH

The idea that the Jewish God was believed to have a wife as some point in history exists because some inscriptions on archeological artifacts from the Iron Age appear to connect Asherah, an ancient pagan fertility goddess, with the God of Israel, Yahweh.  The inscriptions ask for blessings from “Yahweh and his Asherah” (or “asherah,” since its unclear if the word is a proper name or not).  The artwork may even depict “Yahweh” with Asherah.  Of course, the writers of the Bible never speak of the immaterial, self-sufficient, self-existent, one-and-only God of the Jews as having a wife (and making idols and images of their God was strictly forbidden… and how do you make an image of an immaterial being anyway?) .  But some have even gone so far as to propose that God’s wife had been edited out of the Bible.

GOD’S NAME

In Exodus 3, when Moses asks God for his name, God replies, “I AM WHO I AM” and “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).  “I AM” in the original Hebrew is “YHWH” or Yahweh.  When you see “LORD” spelled in all capital letters in your Bible, the original Hebrew reads “YHWH,” God’s name as given to Moses.  (God’s “name” is really a description of his eternal, self-sufficient, self-existent nature, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

THE EVIDENCE (OR LACK OF)

Richard S. Hess, professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Denver Seminary, in “Did Yahweh Have a Wife?  Iron Age Religion in Israel and Its Neighbors” in the book Come Let Us Reason, examines the archeological evidence concerning Yahweh, Asherah, and other Iron Age deities.  Examining archeology from such a long time ago is difficult because it’s like having few puzzle pieces of a large puzzle.  For this reason alone, the conclusions the scholars jump to in TV shows like Bible Secrets Revealed about Yahweh having a wife are hasty and based on speculation.

Further, no evidence whatsoever — whether early manuscripts or otherwise — supports the idea that the writers of the Bible at one time taught that God had a wife and that this information was later removed.  This is purely unfounded speculation and sensationalism.

Further, Hess says the evidence never describes Yahweh as having offspring or being connected to fertility religions, and “Asherah’s complete absence in all the blessing formulae of letters and all other Judean references to deity” shows she wasn’t a prominent figure.  In fact, she doesn’t even appear to hold any “clear place in the official cult(s)” of the nearby nations.  Further, the evidence shows Yahweh with unique “chief god” status in Israel, much different from neighboring pagan lands, and the worship of Yahweh was “somewhat” exclusive in ancient Israel and “virtually exclusive” in Judah.

Hess also concludes from the evidence that Yahwah was not generally identified with physical objects, animals, or other images and idols, and Yahweh’s very nature was unique among the Iron Age gods.  Thus, the artwork of Yahweh and Asherah — if that’s what, in fact, it is — and the inscriptions are oddities, not the norm.  Just as it happens today, people try to mix all sorts of false beliefs into the true faith of Christianity.  This is one of the reasons it’s so important that we have written Scriptures, unlike most of the ancient pagan religions, so our beliefs are secure and cannot be corrupted.

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WHAT THE BIBLE TELLS US

Thus, the available evidence supports what the Bible writers tell us: Yahweh was the exclusive God of Israel, but sometimes there was syncretism (the mixing of religions) with neighboring pagan lands.  Within the Old Testament, we see constant warnings against Israel mixing with the religions of their pagan neighbors and Israel’s failure to listen.  We also see references to Asherah-related idols, often in the forms of some sort of trees or “poles.”

For instance, Deuteronomy 16:21 commands, “You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord your God, which you shall make for yourself.”  In 2 Kings 21, evil King Manasseh practices idolatry, worshipping other deities other than the one true God, and we’re told he “erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah.”  Then, in 2 Kings 23, King Josiah brings the Hebrews back from idolatry to proper worship of Yahweh by ordering the destruction of pagan idols, including Asherah poles.

THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN

Moreover, the references to “the queen of heaven” in Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:19 may be referring to Asherah, but more likely are referring to a similar fertility goddess (Astarte or Ishtar) of Assyria or Babylon, who was the wife of one of their gods (Baal or Molech).  A pagan religion giving a goddess the title “queen of heaven” is nothing unique and doesn’t automatically connect that goddess to the God of Israel in anyway, especially since “heaven” is a general term for an astral, non-physical realm.  Once again, jumping to the conclusion that Yahweh had a wife from this reference of a pagan “queen of heaven” is a rash conclusion to say the least.

As with many of these unorthodox claims, the idea of “God’s wife” is based on little evidence, ignores the Biblical text, and promotes misinformation based on speculation, sensationalism, and canyon-sized jumps of logic.

Main Source:  Richard S. Hess, “Did Yahweh Have a Wife? Iron Age Religion in Israel and Its Neighbors” in Come Let Us Reason, Digital Edition, v.1, ed. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2012).

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