Nama Yahweh : Suatu Tinjauan Etimologis terhadap Arti dan Penggunaan Nama Yahweh Berdasarkan Keluaran 3:14

Abstract

The dispute among Christians regarding the using of the name Yahweh and Allah in Indonesia recently encouraged me to do an etymological study of the of the name old Yahweh based on Exodus 3:14, I begin this attempt by describing the literary history of the Hebrew Bible that is divisible into three partially overlapping phrases: 1). The stage of the formation of the separate literary units, oral and written, that eventually became a part of the Hebrew Bible, from about 1200 B.C.E. to 100 B.C.E, 2). The stage of the final formation of the Hebrew Bible as an authoritative collection of writing, known as TANAK, beginning ca. 400 B.C.E. to 90 C.E., 3)The stage of preservation and transmission of the Hebrew Bible, both in the original tongue and in translations into other languages. All these processes show that the Hebrew Bible that we own now is a collection that has neen through a long time processes of the copying, therefore there are so many written words that cannot be read and pronounced clearly in Hebrew. And one of the good example for this is the name Yahweh. In this paper, I will show that up to this time, there is nobody who knows exactly how to pronounce the tentragrammation of YHWH. Instead, people chose to use vocals that occur in the word Adonai (LORD) and Elohim (GOD) that placed under the consonants of YHWH in order to be able to pronounced it (ketip-qere). My investigation of the name of Yahweh itself is based on Exodus 3:14 that highlight God's declaration to Moses in terms of explaining his identity to him. He said, Ehyeh asher ehyeh. Many scholars translated it as I am who I am or I will be. But, like Freedman, choose to translate it as hiphil verb that means I have caused things exist or the words I created what I created In short, Ehyeh asher ehyeh can be translated as I am the creator as the result of idem per idem construction. The word ehyeh later became the word Yahweh that changed the first person I to the third person he. Therefore, it can be translated as He created. Apart from all those attempts to reveal the meaning of this name, one thing to remember is up to this time the meaning of the saying ehyeh asher ehyeh remains puzzled.