Tetragrammaton


The Tetragrammaton or Tetragram is the four-letter Hebrew word, the name of the biblical God of Israel. The four letters, read from right to left, are yodh, he, waw and he. While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of the name, "the form Yahweh is now accepted almost universally".
The books of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible except Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs contain this Hebrew name. Observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce nor do they read aloud proposed transcription forms such as Yahweh or Yehovah; instead they replace it with a different term, whether in addressing or referring to the God of Israel. Common substitutions in Hebrew are Adonai, HaShem and hakadosh baruch hu.

Four letters

The letters, properly read from right to left, are:
HebrewLetter namePronunciation
Yod
He
Waw, or placeholder for "O"/"U" vowel
He

Modern scholars generally agree that YHWH is derived from the Hebrew triconsonantal root היה, “to be, become, come to pass”, an archaic form of which is הוה, with a third person masculine y- prefix, equivalent to English “he”. They connect it to, where the divinity who spoke with Moses responds to a question about his name by declaring: אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, "I am that I am" or "I will be what I will be".

Vocalisation

YHWH and Hebrew script

Like all letters in the Hebrew script, the letters in YHWH originally indicated consonants. In unpointed Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written and others are written ambiguously, as certain letters came to have a secondary function indicating vowels. Hebrew letters used to indicate vowels are known as matres lectionis. Therefore it can be difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling, and the Tetragrammaton is a particular example: all four of its letters can be matres lectionis.
The original consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was, several centuries later, provided with vowel marks by the Masoretes to assist reading. In places that the consonants of the text to be read differed from the consonants of the written text, they wrote the qere in the margin as a note showing what was to be read. In such a case the vowels of the qere were written on the ketiv. For a few frequent words, the marginal note was omitted: these are called qere perpetuum.
One of the frequent cases was the Tetragrammaton, which according to later Jewish practices should not be pronounced but read as "Adonai", or, if the previous or next word already was Adonai, as "Elohim".
Writing the vowel diacritics of these two words on the consonants YHVH produces יְהֹוָה and יֱהֹוִה‎ respectively, non-words that would spell "Yehovah" and "Yehovih" respectively.
The oldest complete or nearly complete manuscripts of the Masoretic Text with Tiberian vocalisation, such as the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, both of the 10th or 11th century, mostly write , with no pointing on the first h. It could be because the o diacritic point plays no useful role in distinguishing between Adonai and Elohim and so is redundant, or it could point to the qere being Shema, which is Aramaic for "the Name".

Uncertainty in the first half of the nineteenth century

In his German-language Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, the first edition of which was published in sections between 1810 and 1812 and the third edition in 1828, in the 1833 edition in Latin, and in the revised German text of 1834 the Hebrew scholar Wilhelm Gesenius, while recognising that the vowels attached to the Tetragrammaton in the Masoretic text are those of "Adonai" and "Elohim", very briefly summarised the arguments in support of different views on the original pronunciation.
For an English translation of Gesenius' Lexicon see that by Robinson.
Most commentators, Gesenius said, favoured Yahwoh, in line with the statement by several ancient writers that the Jews called their God ΙΑΩ. This form has the same vowel structure as in the Hebrew names of Jacob and Pharaoh.
Others favoured Yahweh on the basis of the account by Theodoret of the Samaritan pronunciation as Ιαβε, of the theophoric name suffixes יָה֫וּ and יָהּ, and the abbreviated name YH.
Pronunciation according to the Masoretic vowel-points was defended by Michaëlis. Supporters of this view, Gesenius said, were not altogether without means of defending their position, since the theophoric name prefixes יְהוֹ and יו could most easily be explained as derived from "Jehovah".
In 1833 and 1834 Gesenius referred to the 1707 book in which Adriaan Reland reprinted the views of several other scholars debating the reasons for and against the pronunciation as "Yahweh" or as "Jehovah", to enable readers to make their own judgement. By then the majority view, shared by Reland, was that the pronunciation as Yahweh more accurately represents how the Tetragrammaton was pronounced than the usual Masoretic punctuation "יְהֹוָה", from which the English transliteration Jehovah has been derived.
Neither in the 1833 and 1834 books did Gesenius explicitly give his personal opinion, but he maintained that the Tetragrammaton name is derived from the verb הוה. He continued his studies and in the vast Thesaurus philologicus criticus linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti, on which he had only reached the second-last letter of the Hebrew alphabet at the time of his death, he rejected the interpretation of the name as "Yahwoh" and declared firmly in favour of "Yahweh", from which the theophoric name prefixes יְהוֹ and יו can be derived also. This view is found also in later editions of his Lexicon.

Yahweh

states that, in spite of the uncertainties that exist, there is now strong scholarly consensus that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is Yahweh : "The strong consensus of biblical scholarship is that the original pronunciation of the name YHWH that God goes on to use in verse 15 was Yahweh." R. R. Reno agrees that, when in the late first millennium Jewish scholars inserted indications of vowels into the Hebrew Bible, they signalled that what was pronounced was "Adonai" ; non-Jews later combined the vowels of Adonai with the consonants of the Tetragrammaton and invented the name "Jehovah", and "modern scholars have developed their own, more plausible speculations, and a consensus has emerged that vocalizes the divine name as "Yahweh". But at the end of the day, we really don't know, and in any event, the ancient imperative of spiritual modesty remains compelling. or many centuries Christians followed the Jewish tradition of vocalizing the divine name 'YHWH' as 'Adonai', which is Hebrew for 'Lord'. Newer translations try to restore the particularity of the name of God by spelling it out as Yahweh. There are good reasons to support the older approach. It has the advantage of spiritual and intellectual modesty." Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka state: "The Qre is יְהֹוָה the Lord, whilst the Ktiv is probably יַהְוֶה ", and they add: "Note 1: In our translations, we have used Yahweh, a form widely accepted by scholars, instead of the traditional Jehovah." Already in 1869, when, as shown by the use of the then traditional form "Jehovah" as title for its article on the question, the present strong consensus that the original pronunciation was "Yahweh" had not yet attained full force, Smith's Bible Dictionary, a collaborative work of noted scholars of the time, declared: "Whatever, therefore, be the true pronunciation of the word, there can be little doubt that it is not Jehovah." Mark P. Arnold remarks that certain conclusions drawn from the pronunciation of YHWH as "Yahweh" would be valid even if the scholarly consensus were not correct.

Non-biblical Texts

Texts with Tetragrammaton

The oldest known inscription of the Tetragrammaton dates to 840 BCE: the Mesha Stele mentions the Israelite god Yahweh.
Of the same century are two pottery sherds found at Kuntillet Ajrud with inscriptions mentioning "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah". A tomb inscription at Khirbet el-Qom also mentions Yahweh. Dated slightly later there are an ostracon from the collections of Shlomo Moussaieff, and two tiny silver amulet scrolls found at Ketef Hinnom that mention Yahweh. Also a wall inscription, dated to the late 6th century BCE, with mention of Yahweh had been found in a tomb at Khirbet Beit Lei.
Yahweh is mentioned also in the Lachish letters and the slightly earlier Tel Arad ostraca, and on a stone from Mount Gerizim.

Texts with similar theonyms

The theonyms YHW and YHH are found in the Elephantine papyri of about 500 BCE. One ostracon with YH is thought to have lost the final letter of an original YHW. These texts are in Aramaic, not the language of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton and, unlike the Tetragrammaton, are of three letters, not four. However, because they were written by Jews, they are assumed to refer to the same deity and to be either an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton or the original name from which the name YHWH developed.
Kristin De Troyer says that YHW or YHH, and also YH, are attested in the fifth and fourth-century BCE papyri from Elephantine and Wadi Daliyeh: "In both collections one can read the name of God as Yaho and Ya". The name YH, the first syllable of "Yahweh", appears 50 times in the Old Testament, 26 times alone, 24 times in the expression "Hallelujah". Thomas Römer holds that "the original pronunciation of Yhwh was 'Yahô' or 'Yahû'". Nonetheless, archaeological records of the Tetragrammaton predate by several centuries those of the short names.
An Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III mentions a group of Shasu whom it calls "the Shashu of Yhw³". James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson tentatively suggest that the Amenhotep III inscription may indicate that worship of Yahweh originated in an area to the southeast of Palestine. A later inscription from the time of Ramesses II in West Amara associates the Shasu nomads with S-rr, interpreted as Mount Seir, spoken of in some texts as where Yahweh comes from. Frank Moore Cross says: "It must be emphasized that the Amorite verbal form is of interest only in attempting to reconstruct the proto-Hebrew or South Canaanite verbal form used in the name Yahweh. We should argue vigorously against attempts to take Amorite yuhwi and yahu as divine epithets."
According to De Troyer, the short names, instead of being ineffable like "Yahweh", seem to have been in spoken use not only as elements of personal names but also in reference to God: "The Samaritans thus seem to have pronounced the Name of God as Jaho or Ja." She cites Theodoret as that the shorter names of God were pronounced by the Samaritans as "Iabe" and by the Jews as "Ia". She adds that the Bible also indicates that the short form "Yah" was spoken, as in the phrase "Halleluyah".
The Patrologia Graeca texts of Theodoret differ slightly from what De Troyer says. In Quaestiones in Exodum 15 he says that Samaritans pronounced the name Ἰαβέ and Jews the name Άϊά. In Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium 5.3, he uses the spelling Ἰαβαί.

Magical papyri

Representations of the Tetragrammaton name or combinations inspired by it in languages such as Greek and Coptic. giving some indication of its pronunciation, occur as names of powerful agents in Jewish magical papyri found in Egypt. There is a single instance of the heptagram ιαωουηε, while Iave and Iαβα Yaba occurs frequently. Among the Jews in the Second Temple Period magical amulets became very popular. The tetragram appeared on them, in the form of J, JJ, JJJ, JJJJ or JH, JHW, as the word 'HJH', and in a long series of permutations: ', H, W and J.
Yawe is found in an Ethiopian Christian list of magical names of Jesus, purporting to have been taught by him to his disciples.

Hebrew Bible

The Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible

In the Hebrew Bible, the Tetragrammaton occurs 6828 times, as can be seen in Kittel's Biblia Hebraica and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. In addition, the marginal notes or masorah indicate that in another 134 places, where the received text has the word Adonai, an earlier text had the Tetragrammaton. which would add up to 142 additional occurrences. Even in the Dead Sea Scrolls practice varied with regard to use of the Tetragrammaton. According to Brown–Driver–Briggs, יְהֹוָה occurs 6,518 times, and יֱהֹוִה 305 times in the Masoretic Text.
The first appearance of the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible is in the Book of Genesis 2:4. The only books it does not appear in are Ecclesiastes, the Book of Esther, and Song of Songs.
In the Book of Esther the Tetragrammaton does not appear, but it has been distinguished acrostic-wise in the initial or last letters of four consecutive words, as indicated in Est 7:5 by writing the four letters in red in at least three ancient Hebrew manuscripts.
The short form Yah "occurs 50 times if the phrase hallellu-Yah is included": 43 times in the Psalms, once in Exodus 15:2; 17:16; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4, and twice in Isaiah 38:11. It also appears in the Greek phrase Ἁλληλουϊά in.
Other short forms are found as a component of theophoric Hebrew names in the Bible: jô- or jehô- and -jāhû or -jāh. A form of jāhû/jehô appears in the name Elioenai in 1Ch 3:23–24; 4:36; 7:8; Ezr 22:22, 27; Neh 12:41.
The following graph shows the absolute number of occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in the books in the Masoretic Text, without relation to the length of the books.

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bar:Ex from:0 till: 398
bar:Le from:0 till:311
bar:Nu from:0 till:396
bar:De from:0 till:550
bar:Jos from:0 till:224
bar:Jg from:0 till: 175
bar:Ru from:0 till: 18
bar:1Sa from:0 till: 320
bar:2Sa from:0 till: 153
bar:1Ki from:0 till: 257
bar:2Ki from:0 till:277
bar:1Ch from:0 till:175
bar:2Ch from:0 till:384
bar:Ezr from:0 till:37
bar:Ne from:0 till:7
bar:Es from:0 till:0
bar:Job from:0 till:32
bar:Ps from:0 till:695
bar:Pr from:0 till:87
bar:Ec from:0 till:0
bar:Ca from:0 till:0
bar:Isa from:0 till:450
bar:Jer from:0 till:726
bar:La from:0 till:32
bar:Eze from:0 till:434
bar:Da from:0 till:8
bar:Ho from:0 till:46
bar:Joe from:0 till:33
bar:Am from:0 till:81
bar:Ob from:0 till:7
bar:Jon from:0 till:26
bar:Mic from:0 till:40
bar:Na from:0 till:13
bar:Hab from:0 till:13
bar:Zep from:0 till:34
bar:Hag from:0 till:35
bar:Zec from:0 till:133
bar:Mal from:0 till:46
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textcolor:black fontsize:S
bar:Ge at: 165 text: 165 shift:
bar:Ex at: 398 text: 398 shift:
bar:Le at: 311 text: 311 shift:
bar:Nu at: 396 text: 396 shift:
bar:De at: 550 text: 550 shift:
bar:Jos at: 224 text: 224 shift:
bar:Jg at: 175 text: 175 shift:
bar:Ru at: 18 text: 18 shift:
bar:1Sa at: 320 text: 320 shift:
bar:2Sa at: 153 text: 153 shift:
bar:1Ki at: 257 text: 257 shift:
bar:2Ki at: 277 text: 277 shift:
bar:1Ch at: 175 text: 175 shift:
bar:2Ch at: 384 text: 384 shift:
bar:Ezr at: 37 text: 37 shift:
bar:Ne at: 17 text: 17 shift:
bar:Es at: 0 text: 0 shift:
bar:Job at: 32 text: 32 shift:
bar:Ps at: 695 text: 695 shift:
bar:Pr at: 87 text: 87 shift:
bar:Ec at: 0 text: 0 shift:
bar:Ca at: 0 text: 0 shift:
bar:Isa at: 450 text: 450 shift:
bar:Jer at: 726 text: 726 shift:
bar:La at: 32 text: 32 shift:
bar:Eze at: 434 text: 434 shift:
bar:Da at: 8 text: 8 shift:
bar:Ho at: 46 text: 46 shift:
bar:Joe at: 33 text: 33 shift:
bar:Am at: 81 text: 81 shift:
bar:Ob at: 7 text: 7 shift:
bar:Jon at: 26 text: 26 shift:
bar:Mic at: 40 text: 40 shift:
bar:Na at: 13 text: 13 shift:
bar:Hab at: 13 text: 13 shift:
bar:Zep at: 34 text: 34 shift:
bar:Hag at: 35 text: 35 shift:
bar:Zec at: 133 text: 133 shift:
bar:Mal at: 46 text: 46 shift:
TextData=
fontsize:S pos:
text: The occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible

Leningrad Codex

Six presentations of the Tetragrammaton with some or all of the vowel points of אֲדֹנָי or אֱלֹהִים are found in the Leningrad Codex of 1008–1010, as shown below. The close transcriptions do not indicate that the Masoretes intended the name to be pronounced in that way.
Chapter and verseMasoretic Text displayClose transcription of the displayRef.Explanation
Genesis 2:4יְהוָהYǝhwāhThis is the first occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in the Hebrew Bible and shows the most common set of vowels used in the Masoretic text. It is the same as the form used in Genesis 3:14 below, but with the dot on the first he left out, because it is a little redundant.
Genesis 3:14יְהֹוָהYǝhōwāhThis is a set of vowels used rarely in the Masoretic text, and are essentially the vowels from Adonai.
Judges 16:28יֱהֹוִהYĕhōwihWhen the Tetragrammaton is preceded by Adonai, it receives the vowels from the name Elohim instead. The hataf segol does not revert to a shewa because doing so could lead to confusion with the vowels in Adonai.
Genesis 15:2יֱהוִהYĕhwihJust as above, this uses the vowels from Elohim, but like the second version, the dot on the first he is omitted as redundant.
1 Kings 2:26יְהֹוִהYǝhōwihHere, the dot on the first he is present, but the hataf segol does get reverted to a shewa.
Ezekiel 24:24יְהוִהYǝhwihHere, the dot on the first he is omitted, and the hataf segol gets reverted to a shewa.

ĕ is hataf segol; ǝ is the pronounced form of plain shva.
The o diacritic dot on the first he is often omitted because it plays no useful role in distinguishing between the two intended replacements, Adonai and Elohim .

Dead Sea Scrolls

In the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Hebrew and Aramaic texts the Tetragrammaton and some other names of God in Judaism were sometimes written in paleo-Hebrew script, showing that they were treated specially. Most of God's names were pronounced until about the 2nd century BCE. Then, as a tradition of non-pronunciation of the names developed, alternatives for the Tetragrammaton appeared, such as Adonai, Kurios and Theos. The 4Q120, a Greek fragment of Leviticus discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls has ιαω, the Greek form of the Hebrew trigrammaton YHW. The historian John the Lydian wrote: "The Roman Varo defining him says that he is called Iao in the Chaldean mysteries". Van Cooten mentions that Iao is one of the "specifically Jewish designations for God" and "the Aramaic papyri from the Jews at Elephantine show that 'Iao' is an original Jewish term".
The preserved manuscripts from Qumran show the inconsistent practice of writing the Tetragrammaton, mainly in biblical quotations: in some manuscripts is written in paleo-Hebrew script, square scripts or replaced with four dots or dashes.
The members of the Qumran community were aware of the existence of the Tetragrammaton, but this was not tantamount to granting consent for its existing use and speaking. This is evidenced not only by special treatment of the Tetragrammaton in the text, but by the recommendation recorded in the 'Rule of Association' : "Who will remember the most glorious name, which is above all ".
The table below presents all the manuscripts in which the Tetragrammaton is written in paleo-Hebrew script, in square scripts, and all the manuscripts in which the copyists have used tetrapuncta.
Copyists used the 'tetrapuncta' apparently to warn against pronouncing the name of God. In the manuscript number 4Q248 is in the form of bars.
PALEO-HEBREWSQUARETETRAPUNCTA
1Q11 2–5 3 2Q13 1QS VIII 14
1Q14 1–5 1, 2 4Q27 1QIsaa XXXIII 7, XXXV 15
1QpHab VI 14; X 7, 14; XI 10 4Q37 4Q53 13 III 7, 7
1Q15 3, 4 4Q78 4Q175 1, 19
2Q3 2 2; 7 1; 8 3 4Q96 4Q176 1–2 i 6, 7, 9; 1–2 ii 3; 8–10 6, 8, 10
3Q3 1 2 4Q158 4Q196 17 i 5; 18 15
4Q20 1–2 3 4Q163 I 19; II 6; 15–16 1; 21 9; III 3, 9; 25 7 4Q248 5
4Q26b linia 8 4QpNah II 10 4Q306 3 5
4Q38a 5 6 4Q173 4 2 4Q382 9+11 5; 78 2
4Q57 4Q177 4Q391 36, 52, 55, 58, 65
4Q161 8–10 13 4Q215a 4Q462 7; 12
4Q165 6 4 4Q222 4Q524 ) 6–13 4, 5
4Q171 II 4, 12, 24; III 14, 15; IV 7, 10, 19 4Q225 XḤev/SeEschat Hymn 2 7
11Q2 2 2, 6, 7 4Q365
11Q5 4Q377 2 ii 3, 5
4Q382
11Q6
11Q7
11Q19
11Q20
11Q11

Septuagint and other Old Greek versions

The most complete copies of the Septuagint, versions from fourth century onwards consistently use Κύριος, or Θεός, where the Hebrew has YHWH, corresponding to substituting Adonai for YHWH in reading the original, but the oldest fragments have the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew characters, with the exception of P. Ryl. 458 where there are blank spaces, leading some scholars such as Colin Henderson Roberts to believe that it contained letters, and 4Q120 that has ΙΑΩ. According to Paul E. Kahle, Françoise Dunand and Martin Rösel, in P. Ryl. 458 it is likely that the Tetragrammaton was intended to be written where these blank spaces appear. Albert Pietersma claims that P. Ryl. 458 is irrelevant in this regard, since it was only because the lacuna is too large for, a nomen sacrum that in any case would not be used in this Jewish manuscript, that Kahle proposed that the lacuna must have been meant for the Tetragrammaton ; the vacant space could just as well have been for the unabbreviated word κύριος.
The oldest known LXX manuscript that has the Hebrew Tetragrammaton is of the first century BCE, with the letters written in square script. A slightly later one has the tetragrammon in archaic Paleo-Hebrew letters.
Of the same period as the oldest LXX manuscript with the Hebrew Tetragrammaton is the manuscript 4Q120 with the Greek trigrammaton ΙΑΩ. Patrick W. Skehan and Martin Hengel propose that the Septuagint originally had ΙΑΩ and that this was altered to Aramaic/Hebrew characters and later to Paleo-Hebrew and finally was replaced by Κύριος.
Other old fragments cannot be used in this discussion because, in addition to their brevity and fragmentary condition, they include no Hebrew Bible verse containing the Tetragrammaton. 4Q126, which contains the word κύριος cannot be cited as using it for the Tetragrammaton, since its unidentified text is not necessarily biblical. In Septuagint manuscripts dating from about the third century CE onwards the Greek word Κύριος is used rather frequently to represent the divine name יהוה and can be what was used when reading out representations in non-Greek characters.
In 2014, Pavlos Vasileiadis gave the following account of the various views on what was the original translation of the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint, ending with his statement that what he called "the hard evidence" supports Rolf Furuli's thesis that the Septuagint originally had some form of Ιαω and that Κύριος was not introduced before the Common Era:
Throughout the Septuagint, as now known, the word Κύριος without the definite article is used to represent the divine name, but it is uncertain whether this was the Septuagint's original rendering. Origen and Jerome said that in their time the best manuscripts gave not the word Κύριος but the Tetragrammaton itself written in an older form of the Hebrew characters, the paleo-Hebrew letters, not the square: "In the more accurate exemplars the name is written in Hebrew characters; not, however, in the current script, but in the most ancient.
2nd-century BCE
In copies of the Bible translated into Greek in the 2nd century CE by Symmachus and Aquila of Sinope, the Tetragrammaton occurs. The following manuscripts contain the Tetragrammaton:
3rd-century CE
In the Hexapla, the Tetragrammaton is included in works by Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, but additionally in three other anonymous Greek translations.
7th-century CE
Sidney Jellicoe wrote that "the evidence most recently to hand is tending to confirm the testimony of Origen and Jerome, and that Kahle is right in holding that LXX texts, written by Jews for Jews, retained the divine name in Hebrew Letters or in the Greek-letters imitative form ΠΙΠΙ, and that its replacement by Κύριος was a Christian innovation". Jellicoe draws together evidence from a great many scholars and various segments of the Septuagint to draw the conclusions that the absence of "Adonai" from suggests that the insertion of the term Kyrios was a later practice; in the Septuagint Kyrios is used to substitute YHWH; and the Tetragrammaton appeared in the original text, but Christian copyists removed it.
Eusebius and Jerome used the Hexapla. This is further affirmed by The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, which states "Recently discovered texts doubt the idea that the translators of the LXX have rendered the Tetragrammaton JHWH with KYRIOS. The most ancient available manuscripts of the LXX have the Tetragrammaton written in Hebrew letters in the Greek text. This was a custom preserved by the later Hebrew translator of the Old Testament in the first centuries "
David Trobisch has noted that, while Christian manuscripts of the Jewish Bible use Kύριος or the nomina sacra and to represent the Tetragrammaton, manuscripts of Greek translations of the Old Testament written by Jewish scribes, such as those found in Qumran, reproduce it within the Greek text in several different ways. Some give it in either Hebrew, Aramaic or paleo-Hebrew letters. Others transliterate it in Greek characters as ΠΙΠΙ or ΙΑΩ. The fragment Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1007 is in fact difficult to identify as either Christian or Jewish, as on the barely legible recto side it contains the nomen sacrum and the Tetragrammaton represented as a double yodh יי.
According to Edmon Gallagher, a faculty member of Heritage Christian University, "extant Greek manuscripts from Qumran and elsewhere that are unambiguously Jewish also include several ways of representing the Divine Name, none of which was with κύριος, the term used everywhere in our Christian manuscripts". He concludes that there is no certainty about whether it was a Jew or a Christian who transcribed the Cairo Genizah manuscripts of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible by Aquila, in which the Tetragrammaton is generally given in paleo-Hebrew letters but in one instance, where there was insufficient space at the end of a line, by, the nomen sacrum rendering of the genitive case of Κύριος. E. Gallagher also "has argued convincingly that Christian scribes might have produced paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammata within their biblical manuscripts, in addition to the attested use of the forms יהוה and πιπι."

Apocrypha

In books written in Greek, Κύριος takes the place of the name of God.

Patristic writings

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia and B.D. Eerdmans:
The Peshitta, probably in the second century, uses the word "Lord" for the Tetragrammaton.

Vulgate

The Vulgate made from the Hebrew in the 4th century CE, uses the word , a translation of the Hebrew word Adonai, for the Tetragrammaton.
The Vulgate translation, though made not from the Septuagint but from the Hebrew text, did not depart from the practice used in the Septuagint. Thus, for most of its history, Christianity's translations of the Scriptures have used equivalents of Adonai to represent the Tetragrammaton. Only at about the beginning of the 16th century did Christian translations of the Bible appear with transliterations of the Tetragrammaton.

Usage in religious traditions

Judaism

Especially due to the existence of the Mesha Stele, the Jahwist tradition found in, and ancient Hebrew and Greek texts, biblical scholars widely hold that the Tetragrammaton and other names of God were spoken by the ancient Israelites and their neighbours.
Some time after the destruction of Solomon's Temple, the spoken use of God's name as it was written ceased among the people, even though knowledge of the pronunciation was perpetuated in rabbinic schools. The Talmud relays this occurred after the death of Simeon the Just. Philo calls it ineffable, and says that it is lawful for those only whose ears and tongues are purified by wisdom to hear and utter it in a holy place. In another passage, commenting on Lev. xxiv. 15 seq.: "If any one, I do not say should blaspheme against the Lord of men and gods, but should even dare to utter his name unseasonably, let him expect the penalty of death."
Rabbinic sources suggest that the name of God was pronounced only once a year, by the high priest, on the Day of Atonement. Others, including Maimonides, claim that the name was pronounced daily in the liturgy of the Temple in the priestly benediction of worshippers, after the daily sacrifice; in the synagogues, though, a substitute was used. According to the Talmud, in the last generations before the fall of Jerusalem, the name was pronounced in a low tone so that the sounds were lost in the chant of the priests. Since the destruction of Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Tetragrammaton has no longer been pronounced in the liturgy. However the pronunciation was still known in Babylonia in the latter part of the 4th century.

Spoken prohibitions

The vehemence with which the utterance of the name is denounced in the Mishnah suggests that use of Yahweh was unacceptable in rabbinical Judaism. "He who pronounces the Name with its own letters has no part in the world to come!" Such is the prohibition of pronouncing the Name as written that it is sometimes called the "Ineffable", "Unutterable", or "Distinctive Name".
Halakha prescribes that whereas the Name is written "yodh he waw he", it is only to be pronounced "Adonai"; and the latter name too is regarded as a holy name, and is only to be pronounced in prayer. Thus when someone wants to refer in third person to either the written or spoken Name, the term HaShem "the Name" is used; and this handle itself can also be used in prayer. The Masoretes added vowel points and cantillation marks to the manuscripts to indicate vowel usage and for use in ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in Jewish prayer in synagogues. To יהוה they added the vowels for "Adonai", the word to use when the text was read. While "HaShem" is the most common way to reference "the Name", the terms "HaMaqom" and "Raḥmana" are used in the mishna and gemara, still used in the phrases "HaMaqom y'naḥem ethḥem", the traditional phrase used in sitting Shiva and "Raḥmana l'tzlan".

Written prohibitions

The written Tetragrammaton, as well as six other names of God, must be treated with special sanctity. They cannot be disposed of regularly, lest they be desecrated, but are usually put in long term storage or buried in Jewish cemeteries in order to retire them from use. Similarly, writing the Tetragrammaton unnecessarily is prohibited, so as to avoid having them treated disrespectfully, an action that is forbidden. To guard the sanctity of the Name, sometimes a letter is substituted by a different letter in writing, or the letters are separated by one or more hyphens, a practice applied also to the English name "God", which Jews commonly write as "G-d". Most Jewish authorities say that this practice is not obligatory for the English name.

Kabbalah

tradition holds that the correct pronunciation is known to a select few people in each generation, it is not generally known what this pronunciation is.
There are two main schools of Kabbalah arising in 13th century Spain. These are called Theosophic Kabbalah represented by Rabbi Moshe De leon and the Zohar, and the Kabbalah of Names or Prophetic Kabbalah whose main representative is Rabbi Abraham Abulafia of Saragossa. Rabbi Abulafia wrote many wisdom books and prophetic books where the name is used for meditation purposes from 1271 onwards. Abulafia put a lot of attention on Exodus 15 and the Songs of Moses. In this song it says "Yehovah is a Man of War, Yehovah is his name". For Abulafia the goal of propecy was for a man to come to the level of prophecy and be called "Yehovah a man of war". Abulafia also used the tetragrammaton in a spiritual war against his spiritual enemies. For example, he prophesied in his book "The Sign", Therefore, thus said YHWH, the God of Israel: Have no fear of the enemy".
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, says that the tree of the Tetragrammaton "unfolds" in accordance with the intrinsic nature of its letters, "in the same order in which they appear in the Name, in the mystery of ten and the mystery of four." Namely, the upper cusp of the Yod is Arich Anpin and the main body of Yod is and Abba; the first Hei is Imma; the Vav is Ze`ir Anpin and the second Hei is Nukvah. It unfolds in this aforementioned order and "in the mystery of the four expansions" that are constituted by the following various spellings of the letters:
ע"ב/`AV : יו"ד ה"י וי"ו ה"י, so called "`AV" according to its gematria value ע"ב=70+2=72.
ס"ג/SaG: יו"ד ה"י וא"ו ה"י, gematria 63.
מ"ה/MaH: יו"ד ה"א וא"ו ה"א, gematria 45.
ב"ן/BaN: יו"ד ה"ה ו"ו ה"ה, gematria 52.
Luzzatto summarises, "In sum, all that exists is founded on the mystery of this Name and upon the mystery of these letters of which it consists. This means that all the different orders and laws are all drawn after and come under the order of these four letters. This is not one particular pathway but rather the general path, which includes everything that exists in the Sefirot in all their details and which brings everything under its order."
Another parallel is drawn between the four letters of the Tetragrammaton and the Four Worlds: the י is associated with Atziluth, the first ה with Beri'ah, the ו with Yetzirah, and final ה with Assiah.
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There are some who believe that the tetractys and its mysteries influenced the early kabbalists. A Hebrew tetractys in a similar way has the letters of the Tetragrammaton inscribed on the ten positions of the tetractys, from right to left. It has been argued that the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, with its ten spheres of emanation, is in some way connected to the tetractys, but its form is not that of a triangle. The occult writer Dion Fortune says:
The relationship between geometrical shapes and the first four Sephirot is analogous to the geometrical correlations in tetractys, shown above under Pythagorean Symbol, and unveils the relevance of the Tree of Life with the tetractys.

Samaritans

The Samaritans shared the taboo of the Jews about the utterance of the name, and there is no evidence that its pronunciation was common Samaritan practice. However Sanhedrin 10:1 includes the comment of Rabbi Mana II, "for example those Kutim who take an oath" would also have no share in the world to come, which suggests that Mana thought some Samaritans used the name in making oaths. As with Jews, the use of Shema remains the everyday usage of the name among Samaritans, akin to Hebrew "the Name".

Christianity

It is assumed that early Jewish Christians inherited from Jews the practice of reading "Lord" where the Tetragrammaton appeared in the Hebrew text, or where a Tetragrammaton may have been marked in a Greek text. Gentile Christians, primarily non-Hebrew speaking and using Greek texts, may have read "Lord" as it occurred in the Greek text of the New Testament and their copies of the Greek Old Testament. This practice continued into the Latin Vulgate where "Lord" represented the Tetragrammaton in the Latin text. In Petrus Alphonsi's Tetragrammaton-Trinity diagram, the name is written as "Ieve". At the Reformation, the Luther Bible used "Jehova" in the German text of Luther's Old Testament.

Christian translations

As mentioned above, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Peshitta use the word "Lord".
Use of the Septuagint by Christians in polemics with Jews led to its abandonment by the latter, making it a specifically Christian text. From it Christians made translations into Coptic, Arabic, Slavonic and other languages used in Oriental Orthodoxy and the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose liturgies and doctrinal declarations are largely a cento of texts from the Septuagint, which they consider to be inspired at least as much as the Masoretic Text. Within the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Greek text remains the norm for texts in all languages, with particular reference to the wording used in prayers.
The Septuagint, with its use of Κύριος to represent the Tetragrammaton, was the basis also for Christian translations associated with the West, in particular the Vetus Itala, which survives in some parts of the liturgy of the Latin Church, and the Gothic Bible.
Christian translations of the Bible into English commonly use "" in place of the Tetragrammaton in most passages, often in small capitals, so as to distinguish it from other words translated as "Lord".

Eastern Orthodoxy

The Eastern Orthodox Church considers the Septuagint text, which uses Κύριος, to be the authoritative text of the Old Testament, and in its liturgical books and prayers it uses Κύριος in place of the Tetragrammaton in texts derived from the Bible.

Catholicism

In the Catholic Church, the first edition of the official Vatican Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio, editio typica, published in 1979, used the traditional Dominus when rendering the Tetragrammaton in the overwhelming majority of places where it appears; however, it also used the form Iahveh for rendering the Tetragrammaton in three known places:
In the second edition of the Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio, editio typica altera, published in 1986, these few occurrences of the form Iahveh were replaced with Dominus, in keeping with the long-standing Catholic tradition of avoiding direct usage of the Ineffable Name.
On 29 June 2008, the Holy See reacted to the then still recent practice of pronouncing, within Catholic liturgy, the name of God represented by the Tetragrammaton. As examples of such vocalisation it mentioned "Yahweh" and "Yehovah". The early Christians, it said, followed the example of the Septuagint in replacing the name of God with "the Lord", a practice with important theological implications for their use of "the Lord" in reference to Jesus, as in and other New Testament texts. It therefore directed that, "in liturgical celebrations, in songs and prayers the name of God in the form of the Tetragrammaton YHWH is neither to be used or pronounced"; and that translations of Biblical texts for liturgical use are to follow the practice of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, replacing the divine name with "the Lord" or, in some contexts, "God". The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed this instruction, adding that it "provides also an opportunity to offer catechesis for the faithful as an encouragement to show reverence for the Name of God in daily life, emphasizing the power of language as an act of devotion and worship".

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