Since I haven’t written about Jehovah Witnesses in a while, I thought that today I would address the origin of one of this group’s distinctive practices – exclusive use of the name “Jehovah”.
If you ever come across Jehovah’s Witnesses, either on the street or if they come to your door, it’s not unusual for them to emphasize that God’s name is “Jehovah” and the only appropriate name to be used in reference to Him. They might even go further and claim that other Christian groups have “hidden” the name of God despite, as we will see, that this word was first invented inside the Catholic Church.
When you hear people speaking about the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, you will often hear the terms “Israelite”, “Hebrew” and “Jew” used interchangeably. However, strictly speaking, these terms are not identical.
An Israelite is simply anyone who is a descendant of the Patriarch Jacob. In Genesis 32:28, after wrestling a mysterious man, Jacob is given a new name, “Israel”, which literally means “He who strives with God”.
If you recall, Jacob/Israel had twelve sons. These would later form the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Well, eleven of these sons took great umbrage at their brother Joseph, so they sold him into slavery (those of you with siblings will understand this). Years later, Joseph rose to power in Egypt and, after being reconciled with his family, brought them all to Egypt.
The family of Israel flourished in Egypt for some time until a new Pharaoh rose to power who forced them all into slavery. It is at this time that Moses is called by God to rescue his people and lead them out of Egypt. It is during the period of the Exodus that the term Hebrew is used to refer to the population.
Once the people return to Israel, they enjoy a period of prosperity. However, eventually there is a split in the Kingdom between the northern and southern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom was known as “Judah” and the inhabitants of that area known as Jews. Both the northern and southern kingdoms are conquered and people exiled. After the exile, the term “Jew” is used to refer to any of the Israelites who were left.
I hope that this explanation of terms and recap of Salvation History is helpful!
A couple of days ago I posted some of the important dates concerning the setting of the Biblical canon. Closely related to the subject of the canon is the issue of the deuterocanon, the books referred to by Protestants as “the apocrypha”, which were removed from the canon at the time of the Reformation.
I haven’t done a “Quick Apology” post this week, so here goes. However, rather than dealing with just one objection in this post, today I’m going to provide a series of brief rebuttals of the top ten most common objections raised….
Protestants typically say that the deuterocanonical books shouldn’t be included in the Bible because…
One of my friends sent me an email asking about Bible translations and requesting an introductory post on the subject. Well Ricardo, here you go…
Before we start talking about different translations, let’s begin by considering the language of the original Biblical manuscripts, which are known as “autographs”. In what language were these originals documents written? Despite what Henry Higgins suggests, the Bible was not originally written in English…
So, if it wasn’t English, in what language was the Bible initially written? Well, the original Biblical documents were, in fact, written in several languages. Different languages were used for the Old Testament and New Testament, so let’s look at them in turn…
As part of one of my New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve begun reading through the New Testament. The other day I discovered something about the genealogy of Jesus which I thought was rather interesting. Matthew’s Gospel begins thus:
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, … and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, …Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, … Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
To our modern minds, this list seems rather dull, but to a First Century Jew it is tremendously exciting and important. If you want to know the man, you learn about his family. Anyway, Matthew’s list is about begetting! How can that not be exciting?! 😉
Yesterday was the Feast of St. Lawrence, so to mark this occasion I thought I would give a quick “tip of the hat” to another Lawrence, Dr. Lawrence Feingold.
Now, I’ve never actually met Dr. Feingold, but I have heard many of his talks and they’ve all been, without exception, brilliant. He comes across as unassuming, yet he clearly knows his stuff and is genuinely excited by the material he’s presenting.
I can’t recall exactly how it came about, but towards the end of 2009 I followed a hyperlink that took me to the website belonging to The Association of Hebrew Catholics. On that website I found the first couple of lectures by Dr. Feingold in his series “Themes of the Early Church Fathers“. I liked his tone and style immediately. At that time I had just started to discover these early Christian writers and Dr. Feingold’s series was a superb catalyst in helping familiarize me with the Early Church.
Yesterday was the Feast of