Must we worship and pray
to God using a sacred name?
(Part 1 of 4)

The belief that God has a special Hebrew name for himself that must be used is commonly referred to as the "sacred name" doctrine. Those who adhere to this doctrine, which requires a person to know perfectly how to spell and say what they feel is God's "real" name, are often called Yahweists (Yahweh is one of the Hebrew names for God).

The following are the major tenets of the Sacred Names belief:

• The Greek translation of the New Testament is incorrect because the New Testament was written in Hebrew.

• Hebrew was the universal language spoken before the Great Flood and will be the language of the Kingdom of God.

• There is only one personal name for the Supreme Sovereign of all that exists.

• An individual must be able to know, recognize, and pronounce the correct personal name of the Supreme Sovereign in order to have salvation.

• The Almighty One that Christ called 'Father' was the Creator God whom the Israelites worshiped.

• There is power and salvation in the correct pronunciation of the name of God.

• One cannot worship the Supreme Sovereign unless one knows his personal name.

• It is impossible for a person to truly know the Father or the Savior unless that person can recognize the written representation of their names and pronounce them correctly.

Is This Doctrine Important?

The Sacred Names teaching is so important to many of its believers, that most of their worship toward God and their literature surrounds this one issue. It is also evident from the literature that they produce concerning their beliefs that all other doctrines of their belief system take second place to this one issue.

The belief in the Hebrew Sacred Names doctrine may seem unimportant to some people and even ludicrous to others. However, it is of such a major concern to some groups that they have spent a great deal of time, money, and effort writing books, pamphlets, and study papers about this subject.

A Dangerous Belief

There is merit in researching the names of God; however, this research has given rise to the dangerous belief that the recognition and pronunciation of the name of God is a prerequisite for salvation.

Editors Note:

There is absolutely no way to give a quick and easy answer to confirm or deny the validity of the Sacred Names doctrine, because those who teach this belief use many scriptures in their attempt to prove their point. Because of this, it will be necessary to examine each foundational point in detail so that there will be enough information on which to base an intelligent conclusion in regard to this false doctrine.

Specifically, this study answers the following questions in order to show the impact that belief in this doctrine can have on one's salvation:

1. Are people required to worship and serve the Sovereign Father and his Son or their names?

The answer to this questions is of utmost importance to our salvation. Moreover, the question of whether or not to follow the Sacred Names doctrine is even more basic than the ability to correctly recognize and pronounce the name of the Ones who English speakers recognize as 'God the Father' and 'Jesus Christ.' The basic issues of the Sacred Names doctrine revolve around three foundational questions:

1. What is idolatry?
2. Who and what is God?
3. Who gives salvation?

Once these three basic questions are answered it is easy to see the fallacy of the Sacred Names doctrine.

1. Is the meaning of a name important, or is it the pronunciation that is important?
2. What was God's name before the Genesis Flood?
3. Is the Hebrew name of God a 'mantra' or 'talisman' to the Sacred Names believer?
4. Is there some power in the Hebrew name of God when it is pronounced correctly?
5. Do the Sacred Names believers worship the Supreme Sovereign or do they worship his name?

The answers to these questions are important in order to understand the seriousness of the Sacred Names doctrine and its potential impact on those who are truly seeking to worship the true Supreme Sovereign of all that exists.

There is nothing inherently wrong with people using the Hebrew or Greek name of the Sovereign Father or his Son as a part of their language. The problem is not whether the name is 'Yah', 'Yahwey', 'Elohim', 'Theos', 'Logos' or any other derivation of what is thought to be the correct pronunciation of their sacred names; the problem is the importance some people place on the phonetic sound of the name in relation to salvation and the teaching that the inability to recognize or pronounce their names' adversely impacts on one's relationship with the Sovereign Father and his Son.

The Sacred Names doctrine states clearly that, unless a person knows the exact name of God and its pronunciation, there is no salvation for that person. If this teaching is correct, there are many questions about how a person can and cannot gain salvation. This teaching leaves the following people without hope of salvation:

• People who are mute and cannot speak.

• People who have a speech impediment and cannot pronounce the name correctly (if indeed the correct pronunciation can be found).

• People who are deaf. They are unable to hear the exact pronunciation; therefore, they cannot reproduce it correctly.

• People who are blind and cannot recognize the exact name in order to pronounce it.

If the usage of the phonetic sound of the name of the Savior is the only way a person can obtain salvation, Abraham, Moses, King David and a host of others will be left out of Kingdom of God, because none of these people ever heard the name of the Savior.

The Universal Language Theory

Was Hebrew the universal language before the Flood? Many of the Sacred Names groups believe it was. However, there is no proof to substantiate this belief.

Let Us Confuse Their Language

"And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people are one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing that they have imagined to do will be impossible for them. Let us go down and confuse their language, so that they may not understand each other. So the Lord scattered them upon the face of all the earth: and they stopped building the city" (Genesis 11:5-8, Para.).

Here, we learn four major things about these people who were building this city and a tower:

1. They all spoke the same language.
2. This language was confused by the Creator.
3. The people were scattered throughout the earth.
4. This confusion of the language gave rise to other languages.

Nowhere in this account is there any reference to these people's language being a universal language or a language that was spoken before the Great Flood. It is entirely possible that there were many different pre-Flood languages, and that Noah and his family brought any number of them to the post-Flood world. The thing that precipitated God's intervention was the explosion of knowledge and technology among the people who lived in this one area of the world, and the need to stop their technological progress in order for God's plan for the salvation of humanity to proceed as scheduled (Genesis 11:1-6).

Pre-Flood Language

There is abundant proof that the Great Flood of Noah's time did happen. However, there is no evidence that the language that Noah and his family spoke before this flood was Hebrew, because the flood destroyed the evidence. However, artifacts have been discovered that seem to indicate that a written language different from Hebrew existed before the Great Flood.

In the spring of 1891 a farmer named J.H. Hooper discovered a buried wall many thousands of feet long, this wall extends from the Hiawassee river north of Chattanooga southward, where it dips under the Tennessee river. Upon this wall a number of blocks were discovered which were covered with hieroglyphics of a strange language interspersed with small pictures of the sun, crescent moon, and animals, many of which were unidentifiable. All together, 872 individual characters were noted with many being repeated, which indicates that these hieroglyphs were indeed a written language (Translations of the New York Academy of Sciences (11:26-29) written by A.L.Rawson).

Tennessee Wall Hieroglyphs

At Lawn Ridge north of Peori, Illinois, in August 1870 three workmen who were drilling a well brought up from a depth of 114 feet a coin-medallion in the drilling mud. This coin-medallion was about the size of a U.S. quarter and made of a copper alloy, machine rolled and acid etched with the picture of a woman on one side and the picture of a crouching animal on the other. Around the outer edges of both sides were found glyphs of very definite character, that show all the signs and form of alphabetic writing (Sparks From a Geologist Hammer by Professor Alexander Winchell).

While these two discoveries do not prove that Hebrew was not one of the languages of the pre-flood world; their discovery does document extremely ancient languages of unknown origin that bear no resemblance to ancient or modern Hebrew, or any other known script.

The Father of the Hebrews

Eber, the father of the Hebrews, was not born until about 73 years after the Flood and at least 60 years after the Tower of Babel incident. If he was the father of the Hebrew language, what was God's name before Eber? Did the Hebrew language exist before Eber? What does history show to be the language in existence at the time of Babel? Some historians say that the Hebrew language only dates back to about 2,200 B.C. Of course some feel it is much older. The problem with any of the dates discussed is that there are just as many opinions as there are dates, and there is no totality of agreement among the various historians.

However, it is known that Sumerian history antedates that of the Hebrews by about a thousand years. Therefore, it seems likely that, if there was a single language in use at the time of the Tower of Babel, it would have been Sumerian, which is definitely not Hebrew. Some point to the ancient Moabite Stone to prove Hebrew was the universal language, but the writing on the stone only proves two things: It shows that the name of the Hebrew God was different from the heathen god Baal, and that Hebrew was one among many languages in use during that time.

According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, article 'Alphabet', the Hebrews adopted the alphabetic script along with cultural values from the Canaanites during the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C.. They followed and used the Phoenician script until the ninth century B.C. when they began to develop their own national script. So, the Hebrew alphabet, as we know it today, had its origin in the proto-Canaanite alphabet and is not 'sacred' in any sense of the word.

A New Pure Language

Why would God find it necessary to bring a new pure language to the earth if Hebrew is that pure language? The necessity of a pure language should raise questions as to the validity of Hebrew being the language of the future. It should also bring into question the Hebrew pronunciation of God's name as being the purest. The following scripture leaves no doubt as to when the Lord will restore or institute a pure language:

"Therefore wait on me, says the Lord, until the day that I will rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour on them my indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will turn to the people a pure language, that they may call on the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent" (Zephaniah 3:8-9, KJV).

The New Testament

One of the reasons for discussing the Old and New Testaments separately in this study is to expose the fallacy of one of the major tenets of the Sacred Names doctrine that states that the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew, not Greek. If this were true, where are the original Hebrew documents kept? And can they be viewed and authenticated like the Greek documents? If this claim were true, where is this canonization of the New Testament in the Hebrew language? God says that he would preserve his word, so if it was preserved, where is it? There is no physical proof of this supposition!

If indeed there is an original text, it has been hidden extremely well from those whose life work is to discover and publish such findings. Most importantly, why do the Sacred Names groups use and quote from the Greek New Testament to try to prove many of their doctrinal positions, if they do not believe it is a valid text?

No Accurate Translations

In the article Exploding The Inspired Greek New Testament Myth by Assemblies of Yahweh, we find the following statement:

"We believe that although the original text was inspired, there is no such thing as an inspired translation. Therefore, until such time as the original documents are unearthed, we must base all doctrine on the Old Testament. We should utilize the New Testament, however, and always allow the Old Testament to interpret the New . . .The oldest manuscripts extant with the exception of some Syriac fragments are Greek . . .The first point we would like to establish is that there are no original manuscripts of any book or portion of the New Testament extant today."

It is interesting that all of the Sacred Names groups seem to agree that the original New Testament was inspired. However, they say there are no inspired or accurate translations of these original texts in existence today. If the New Testament is not the inspired Word of God, there is no reason to use it for spiritual guidance or quote from it. Moreover, if there are no accurate translations, we do not have a guide to salvation. And if there is no guide, we are all without hope of eternal life, because in this age we do not have a means of atoning for our sins, which those of ancient Israel had (i.e., the sacrificial system and the priesthood).

Many of the Sacred Names groups attack the King James translation by saying its translators were only mortal men. Yet, they recommend and quote from the Sacred Name translation, the Moffat, Rotherham, Smith, Goodspeed, Jerusalem Bible and many other translations, which were all translations by mortal men.

Most scholars who support the idea that there is evidence of Aramaic influence behind the New Testament Scriptures limit this influence to only a few books. Some Sacred Names advocates carry this to the extreme by teaching that the entire New Testament was written in Aramaic. However, there is absolutely no proof that the New Testament was written in any language other than Greek.

It is not the intention of this study to defame anyone's character. However, one can only wonder about the credibility of a person's or a group's research when they openly state that they do not believe the Greek New Testament translation is valid and proceed to use a scripture from the Greek translation as support for one of their major doctrines.

If Sacred Names adherents feel that the Greek New Testament is not the inspired word of God, they should not use it to try to prove their beliefs, because it is not logical or scholarly. Furthermore, if these researchers want to be consistent in their logic and scholarship, they should not use the Greek New Testament to prove any of their beliefs.

To accept the belief that there is no inspired New Testament requires the view that the early Christians were so indifferent and careless that they allowed the original writings of the apostles and others to be completely replaced without a word of protest. Such an assumption is preposterous.

The Lamsa Translation

Many individuals in the Sacred Names groups believe that the authorized Bible of the Church of the East (i.e., the Peshitta) is the original canonized New Testament. Many quote from a translation of the Peshitta by George M. Lamsa and believe that Lamsa's translation was taken from an original Aramaic text; therefore, it should be used in place of the King James Version.

There is no doubt that the Peshitta exists and is the Bible of the Church of the East but was it translated from the original New Testament text?

In regard to the source of Lamsa's translation of the New Testament, one of the leaders of the Church of the East says,

"The Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic originals, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision" (Catholics Patriarch of the East, Preface, Lamsa Bible, by Mar Eshai Shimun).

Christ reprimanded the disciples saying:

"These twelve Jesus sent out, and charged them, and said, Keep away from pagan practices and do not enter a Samaritan city; But above all go to the sheep which are lost from the House of Israel" (Matthew 10:5-6, Lamsa).

"And he answered, saying to them, I [Christ] am not sent, except to the sheep which went astray from the house of Israel" (Matthew 5:24, Lamsa).

"James a servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered among the Gentiles; Greeting." (James 1:1 Lamsa).

Lamsa translates the name of the Savior as 'Jesus Christ' and not 'Yahweh' or 'Yahshuah.' Moreover, the above scriptures in the Lamsa translation say that the original apostles were to go only to the descendants of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. If the apostles did deliver the canon to those of the Church of the East, they disregarded the clear instructions of Christ, because these people are not Israelites.

Additionally, the Peshitta is written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. And this is documented by Lamsa and other scholars. If Aramaic, which is not Hebrew, was the language in which the original New Testament was written, why would the Aramaic version use many Greek and Chaldean words in its text?

Greek: The International Language

During the time of Christ and the apostles, Greek was the language of the Roman world. The vast majority of the Diaspora (scattered Israelites) could not speak Hebrew or Aramaic. It is interesting that Jesus came from that section of Palestine that was regarded as corrupt in the eyes of the Jews in Jerusalem, because Greek was the common language there (Matthew 4:15; 12:18; John 1:46). It is also interesting that neither Hebrew or Aramaic were suited for the proclamation of the gospel message, because they could not easily express the abstract concepts that are found in the New Testament.

Christ commanded the apostles and disciples to preach the Gospel to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). Greek was the inter- national language of the day; therefore, it was the most appropriate language in which to preach the gospel message.

Acts 6 shows that the Jerusalem Church was comprised of Greek and Aramaic speaking Jews. In fact, the seven men appointed to oversee the needs of the widows all had Greek names, which indicates that they probably spoke the Greek language.

Aramaic versions of the New Testament extant today are translations from the Greek, and it is well known that the origin of the Peshitta is unknown beyond the fact that it is a close translation from the Greek. Lamsa claims that the Peshitta Gospels preserve the words of Jesus better than the Greek Gospels; however, other scholars disagree and say that the Aramaic version does not preserve God's sacred name.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Of Qumran

In 1947 a young Arab shepherd boy named Mohammed discovered a small cave that contained what are called the Dead Sea Scrolls. And from 1947 to 1955, many more caves were found to contain scrolls. What makes these scrolls so exciting is that some of them were written as early as 150 B.C., which gives further proof that the Old Testament we have today is textually correct.

The astounding discovery of the first six caves establishes that the Essene people of Qumran were a part of the Jewish culture. However, a more startling find was made in mid-march of 1955 in cave number seven, which indicates that some of these Essenes were Christians. What people are not generally told is that the seventh cave contained portions of the books of Acts, Romans, Timothy, 2 Peter , and James, which were all written in the Greek language. Apparently, some of the Essene Jewish scholars who lived at Qumran around 70 A.D. had been converted to Christianity.

The discovery of these New Testament fragments among these Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls proves that the Greek language was the language of the New Testament. These fragments of the New Testament constitute authentic evidence that the words of Jesus were widely known and recorded throughout the first century in Palestine. It is also evident that, as early as 70 A.D., the writings of the early church leaders were being compiled and collected in the Greek language of the day.

Bible Numerics

Bible numerics are a tremendous proof that the Old and New Testaments are both the inspired Word of God. Hebrew and Greek are two languages in which each letter of the alphabet has a numerical value. A number of books have been written to explain the numerical sequence of the subject matter of the Bible. This numerical system is so precise that it is exact to the primes of numbers. Both the Old (Hebrew) and New (Greek) Testaments fit together in this numerical structure no matter what the subject may be. However, the Chaldean/Aramaic cannot be made to work within this design. This is a dramatic and demonstrative proof that the New Testament was originally canonized in the Greek language.

The Language Of The Time

History shows us that Hebrew gave way to Aramaic by the time of our Savior. Although Hebrew had ceased to be used, the Aramaic that was used was called Hebrew. Historians also agree that Greek was the language that united people in the Roman Empire.

The Jewish historian Josephus shows in his writings that the Greek language was understood well by Jews living in and out of Palestine. In fact, the Mishna shows there were synagogues in which the Jewish law permitted Greek to be spoken:

"May be read in foreign tongue to them that speak a foreign tongue" (Megillah 2:1).

And it further permitted:

"That the books [the law, the writings, Psalms, etc.] may be written in any language."

However, at the time of Christ these books were

"only permitted to be written in Greek" (Megillah 1:8 The Mishnah, by Herbert Dandy).

Although the majority of historians and Biblical scholars agree that Aramaic (not Hebrew) was the primary language of the Jewish inhabitants of Judea, and that Greek was the universal second language of the day, Josephus says:

"I have taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks and to understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue [Aramaic], that I cannot pronounce Greek with such exactness." (Josephus spoke Greek with an Aramaic accent).

"For our nation does not encourage those who learn the languages of other nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment [learning Greek] as common, not only to all sorts of freemen, but to as many of the servants as pleased to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man, who is fully acquainted with our laws [which was rare among the Jews!] and is able to interpret their meaning" (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XX, chapter XI, Section 2).

Josephus says it was a rare Jewish scholar (i.e., wise man) who understood Hebrew well enough to be versed in the law. This is not only because Hebrew was extremely difficult to learn but also because Aramaic was the language of the Jews, not Hebrew. It was very common for the ordinary person to learn and speak Greek during the time of Christ.

The books of Hebrews and Matthew are the only two books that historians have ever claimed were written in Hebrew or Aramaic/Chaldean, and translated into Greek for canonization. Even the Aramaic version of the New Testament that we have today is freely admitted to be translated from Greek, despite what Dr. Lamsa of the Lamsa Bible claims.

The idea that Hebrew is a sacred language is not valid. The Sacred Names argument rests primarily on the assumption that the Hebrew language is some sort of sacred language to the exclusion of all other languages. There is no valid proof that there has ever been a pure language on the earth. God recognizes the various languages of the world, which was demonstrated on the day of Pentecost in 30 A.D., when the holy spirit was given to the apostles and disciples (Acts 2:1-11).

Both the Old and New Testaments have words from many different languages spread liberally throughout (e.g., Chaldean, Latin, and Aramaic). It is not necessary to list the many words from the different languages that were used in the Bible, because the documentation is easily accessible from Bible helps and research publications.

The important point is that God allowed words from other languages to be used to convey his truth. If Hebrew were to be the only language used for this purpose, there would not be a Greek translation of the New Testament for the elect of God to use; God would have given a Hebrew translation.

The end-result of accepting the Sacred Name doctrine is a complete disbelief in the inspiration of the New Testament.

If God went to the trouble of inspiring the New Testament in Aramaic, as Sacred Names advocates say, why would he allow it to become a corrupt and unreliable Greek text? Surely, such a concept is an open denial of the power and love of God! If God is as concerned about the world as Sacred Names advocates say, we can be sure he did not let his truth become corrupted.

A Prophetic Warning

We are warned not to add to or take away from the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. To do so will result in the loss of salvation. This is a very serious penalty for tampering with the truth of God. Anyone who would assume the responsibility of reconstructing a new Hebrew version of the New Testament, which would include a restored Book of Revelation, should consider this warning:

"For I testify to every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add to these things, God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book" (Revelation 22:18-19). See also Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs 30:5-6; Galatians 1:6-9.