Sacred Name Part Five
JESUS QUOTES THE OLD TESTAMENT
As he taught the people, Jesus often quoted from the Old Testament. He quoted the Old Testament to the adversary when he was tempted. He sometimes quoted it when the Jewish sects and leaders accosted him. On one occasion at a synagogue in Nazareth he read aloud from the writings of Isaiah.
Some of the passages Jesus quoted from the Old Testament were cited directly from the writings. Few of these quotations could be considered verbatim. It is probable some were paraphrases of the actual writings. Perhaps some were quoted from paraphrased sources such as the Targums.[i]
Whether direct quotations or paraphrases, a number of the Old Testament passages from which Jesus’ quotations ultimately came have the four-letter name of God in the Hebrew text. These quotations are the focal point of one faucet of the sacred name teaching that Jesus said the name Yahweh. Therefore, these quotations are the subject of this fifth part of the study.
The position taken by some sacred name teachers is that Jesus would have quoted the Old Testament passages verbatim.[ii] Having him make verbatim quotations is an attempt to affirm and protect their doctrine and is exactly the stance one would expect these teachers to take. All sacred name teachers affirm that Jesus uttered some pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton when he made these quotations. This stance is an attempt to safeguard the sacred name movement insistence that ever person is obligated to call God by the name Yahweh.
A review of some of these quotations will demonstrate whether the sacred name doctrinal claims are true. According to the Scriptures, Jesus did not say the name Yahweh when he quoted the Old Testament. The Scriptures show that he avoided speaking this name when he made these quotations.
JESUS READ FROM ISAIAH
Luke records the details of the occasion upon which Jesus came to the synagogue he had attended as a child. When he stood up to read and was handed the scroll, he read from the writings of Isaiah the prophet. He also commented upon the prophecy.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.[iii]
In the Hebrew text of Isaiah, the verses Jesus read have the Tetragrammaton three times. Below are Isaiah’s words from The Jewish Publication Society’s English translation of the Hebrew text. So that no mistake should be made about what Jesus did here, please note the underlined words in the quotation. These are the words that this Jewish rendering of the text puts for the Tetragrammaton.
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the humble; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the eyes to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s good pleasure[iv]
Another look at Luke’s record of this event will serve to focus on the words Jesus spoke as he read. Luke being a meticulous writer, without doubt thoroughly investigated this incident and then wrote under the direction of the Holy Spirit. It is unlikely Luke made a mistake regarding what Jesus said in Nazareth that day in the synagogue as he read from Isaiah.
In the quotation below, a blank and two underlines are inserted to show how Jesus’ reading differed from the commonly accepted Hebrew text in use today. We cannot know what text he was reading.
The Spirit of the Lord [a]is upon me, because [b]he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of[c]the Lord.
The underlines show how Jesus handled the three times the Tetragrammaton is found in the Hebrew text. In the first instance [a], Jesus made no notice of the Tetragrammaton. He read as though it were not in the text. In the second [b], he replaces the Tetragrammaton with the pronoun he. Finally [c], Jesus simply voices the commonly accepted first century Jewish reference to the Creator, replacing the Tetragrammaton with the Lord.
It is probable the Isaiah text Jesus had before him as he read was very much the same as the text we have today. Jesus chose to reveal God’s will to us by not voicing the Tetragrammaton. Instead of denying what Jesus did, sacred name teachers should accept the fact that he did not read the name Yahweh at this synagogue. They should further realize that the pattern laid down by Jesus is the one his true disciples will continue to follow. As always, it is necessary to encourage sacred name converts to just believe the written Word of God.
The doctrine of the sacred name will not permit its teachers to accept what is written in the New Testament. The New Testament contradicts the doctrine. Contradict is too mild a word. The New Testament destroys the sacred name doctrine.
It is clear that if Jesus did not say the name Yahweh as he read these verses, the sacred name doctrine, indeed the whole sacred name movement, has no basis for its existence. Therefore, sacred name teachers muster their courage and hastily deny that the New Testament as we have it is the Word of God. They had rather deny the authority of the New Testament than to deny their doctrine.
Any serious study of the sacred name doctrine comes down to consideration of the authority of the New Testament. Truth seekers always accept the New Testament as God’s Word. Sacred name teachers always deny the validity of the New Testament. Read an open letter to a sacred name teacher regarding his Denial of the New Testament.
INVALIDATE THE NEW TESTAMENT
When the sacred name advocate comes face to face with his nemesis, the New Testament, he is compelled to go either of two ways. He can choose to deny the sacred name doctrine or he can choose to deny the validity of the New Testament. But, he cannot have both the New Testament and his doctrine. These are mutually exclusive.
One and all, sacred name teachers and their converts have become willing to say the New Testament is wrong. They are forced to confess that indeed they believe it is an invalid book.
Some sacred name converts take a pen and mark through New Testament words not to their liking and write in words they prefer. This can be said of words like Lord, God, and the name Jesus in particular. In many cases when Jesus says Lord or God, sacred name people replace these words with Yahweh. Others, as they read, will disregard the words written by the apostles of Jesus and voice their own words. Some completely remake the New Testament according to the specifications of their doctrine. Please check the Sacred Name Bible Review Page.
For sacred name people, the New Testament as it exists is not a book to be depended upon for instruction in matters that affect eternal life. Were it not for the words of sacred name teachers themselves, the foregoing statement might be thought of as an exaggeration. Below are presented two witnesses from among sacred name teachers. One is a missionary to India. The other is the leader of a well known know sacred name group. They freely express their opinion concerning how much confidence should be placed in what the New Testament says.
“If you are basing the foundation of your faith on the Greek New Testament I will have to say that is a very flimsy foundation.”[v]
"Therefore, until the original documents [of the New Testament] are unearthed we must base all doctrine on the Old Testament.”[vi]
Such is the concept adopted by those who are willing to accept the sacred name doctrine. They are compelled by their doctrine to believe the New Testament is filled with error. According to the judgment of sacred name teachers, ones system of faith and practice cannot be based on the New Testament. They have accepted for themselves the dichotomy of being Old Testament Christians.[vii] Furthermore, they rejoice to have it so.
Real Bible exegesis is done the other way around. Truth seekers accept the New Testament writings as God breathed. No seeker of truth would attempt to find errors in the New Testament based on what a particular doctrine says. Errors in a particular doctrine should be searched for based on what the New Testament says. The low esteem sacred name teachers have for the New Testament is especially repugnant to all New Covenant believers.
To the degree they have questioned and renounced the inspiration of the New Testament, sacred name teachers have unwittingly or perhaps not so unwittingly followed the lead of modern day liberal bible scholars. They are accepting the rot and theories of men like those of the Jesus Seminar. These scholars are not Bible believing teachers. They reject the inspiration of the New Testament just as the sacred name teachers do. These scholars imagine – not unlike sacred name teachers – that they have the ability “by their collective expertise to determine the authenticity of the more that 1,500 sayings of Jesus”[viii] in the gospels. These men throw out most of what Jesus said as made up by the gospel writers. They, like sacred name teachers, think they have been able to determine what Jesus really said.[ix] One who regards Jesus as the author of eternal salvation, cannot mix the theories of such men with Bible believing worship.
Sacred name teachers cannot get around the written word. They are quite able to walk on eggs while denying the New Covenant scriptures, but they are not able to obscure what is written. The written Word is only obscured for those who are inclined to read and believe the doctrinally biased sacred name revisions of the Scriptures.
On the other hand, most people in the sacred name movement accept the New Testament as valid when it is convenient for their purposes to do so. The movement in general rejects the New Testament where the names Yahweh and Yahshua are not found, where Paul scolds them for Torah [law] keeping as a means to salvation, and where one or another of their teachings is contradicted.
These sacred name teachers promote the theory that over the centuries the New Testament has been corrupted by tampering. They claim the name Yahweh has been systematically removed from the New Testament and other words substituted for it.
NO PROOF OF NEW TESTAMENT TAMPERING
When he read from Isaiah, had Jesus actually pronounced the Tetragrammaton, Luke would not have let it pass unnoticed. In his narration of these events Luke would have recorded the hue and cry such a departure from conventional practice would have caused among those Galilean Jews. The fact there was no such mention made shows Jesus did not depart from the normally accepted way of reading the name. Luke recorded Jesus’ words precisely as he read them.
The disturbance in the synagogue at Nazareth on the day Jesus read from Isaiah arose because Jesus said he was the fulfillment of the very prophecy he had read. This indicated that he was the anointed one. That is what upset those Galilean Jews. They knew that if he were the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words, he would then be the Messiah come to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. They could only see him as Joseph’s son whose family live in the neighborhood. That enraged them. As if that were not enough, he further had the audacity to compare himself to both Elijah and Elisha.
Luke records that it was when he said “these things” and when all those in the synagogue “heard these things” that they “ were filled with wrath” and seizing him forced him out of the city, and would have thrown him off a hill to kill him. Luke gives no indication that this state of affairs was caused by Jesus saying the name Yahweh. It was caused by his laying claim to the messiahship and the Jews thought they knew better. But sacred name teachers do not care what the Bible says. They have already decided the Bible is in error. They say it was because Jesus said the name Yahweh that these rebels wanted to kill Jesus. Again, these teachers are found knowing more than the Bible knows.
The fact that Jesus did not say Yahweh as he read forever seals the doom of the sacred name doctrine. This presents a major problem for sacred name teachers. They attempt to solve this problem by asserting that the true reading was removed. The text has been corrupted, they cry. Quite pointedly, they deny the words of the New Testament.
Nothing can mollify their denial of the Scriptures. The more Bible they are given, the more Bible they deny. The fact that Peter declares the Word to be incorruptible[x] has no noticeable effect on these teachers. Sacred name teachers think he did not know what he was talking about.
Of course, they are unable to show from historical records when this tampering with the New Testament occurred or who did the tampering. The tampering exists only in the desire and in the imagination of sacred name teachers. Nor are they able to tell how more than five thousand Greek New Testament manuscripts spread over hundreds of thousands of square miles in a large number of countries could have all been tampered with. Not a single one having the Tetragrammaton exists today.
But, be warned. The movement’s reworked versions of the scriptures, all eight or nine of them, have put the name Yahweh or some other version of the Tetragrammaton in the mouth of Jesus as he read from Isaiah. They need Yahweh to be there and they have made it be there. By inserting the name Yahweh into the Scriptures, sacred name teachers graphically demonstrate how they reject and deny the validity of the New Testament.
Reject as they will and deny as they must, the truth remains intact after the sacred name bible reviser makes his assault on the biblical record. When Jesus read from Isaiah, if he was reading from a text similar to the one in existence today, he encountered YHWH three times. As has been stated previously, in the first instance, he said nothing where the Isaiah scroll had YHWH. Second, he said “he” where the scroll had YHWH. Finally, Jesus said “the Lord” instead of voicing the name Yahweh as he read the Scriptures in his home synagogue.
Jesus handled the Tetragrammaton in this variety of ways. These variations are not the work of some copyist, as is claimed by sacred name teachers. This is a true record of what Jesus said. Luke recorded it for future generations. God’s Word has spoken. The world in general and the sacred name teacher in particular will remain silent before it.
OTHER QUOTATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT
Below is a list of occasions when Jesus quotes from the Old Testament writings. Certainly there are a number of others. But in this study, the focus is on those occasions when the verses he referred to contain the four letter name of God. The instances given are not meant to be an exhaustive list. However, it cannot pass unnoticed that in each of these instances the New Testament reveals how Jesus avoided saying the name Yahweh.
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1 |
Luke 4: 18-19 |
Jesus reads Isaiah 61: 1-2 |
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2 |
Matthew 4:4[Luke 4:4] |
Quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 |
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3 |
Matthew 4:7[Luke 4:12] |
Quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 |
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4 |
Matthew 4:10 [Luke 4:8] |
Quotes a mix of Deuteronomy 6:13 & 10:20 |
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5 |
Matthew 22: 44[Mark 12:36 & Luke 20:42] |
Quotes Psalms 110:1 |
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6 |
Mark 12: 10-11 [Matt. 21:42] |
Quotes Psalms 118: 22-23 |
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7 |
Mark 12:29-30 |
Quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5 |
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8 |
Luke 4:12 |
Quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 |
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9 |
Luke 10:27etc |
the lawyer quotes Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, |
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10 |
Luke 13:35[Matthew 23: 39] |
Quotes Psalms 118: 26 |
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11 |
Matthew 5:33 |
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