Bible Quiz—it's fun and challenging

[Aractus]

Well, yes we're pretty sure they vocalized Adonai - or some other Hebrew word for LORD. The LXX pretty much proves this, but my point about Adonai is that you can't prove a negative and that it's not sufficient proof to show that the vowel points in the MT do not belong to YHWH. The assumption that the Jews did not know (and still do not know) how to pronounce YHWH is what bothers me, just because they didn't vocalize it while reading the scriptures doesn't prove they didn't know how to say it, after all.

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I asked people if they could spot the question which I thought misrepresented the bible. No one got the one I had in mind, but I am awarding the kudos to Aractus for pointing out that the first question is misleading in that there are two different sets of Ten Commandments and so two correct answers to the question. I am sure just about everyone chose the answer about not coveting which is the conclusion to the Ethical Decalogue. Mind you, I suspect that for the ancient Israelites not seething a kid in its mother's milk as per the Ritual Decalogue was just as important as not coveting the ass of your neighbor's wife.

Thanks, however what about the Name of God (Q3)? I would have thought I made a very strong point on this one.

Here are all the verses where God's name is called Jealous (six times, and that's being extremely generous):

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Exodus 20:5
You must not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ sin, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Exodus 34:14
You are never to bow down to another god because Yahweh, being jealous by nature, is a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 5:9
You must not bow down to them or worship them, because I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ sin to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Isaiah 9:7
The dominion will be vast,
and its prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne of David
and over his kingdom,
to establish and sustain it
with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.
The zeal of Yahweh of Hosts will accomplish this.
Zechariah 1:14
So the angel who was speaking with me said, “Proclaim: Yahweh of Hosts says: I am extremely jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.
Zechariah 8:2
“Yahweh of Hosts says this: I am extremely jealous for Zion; I am jealous for her with great wrath.”

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Yet God's name appears as YHWH 6,828 times. And the fact is when he names himself Jealous, he doesn't claim it is his eternal name, but when he names himself Jehovah he does:

• Exodus 3:13-15:
  Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”
  
  God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

You can see that God first names himself simply "I AM" (HYH) and it appears three times, before revealing himself as YHWH. The slightly annoying thing about the translation above is that it makes it seem as if I AM appears a 4th time "this is how I am ..." yet it does not, a more accurate translation would use square brackets to at least show that it's not the same Hebrew word HYH occurring again.

Furthermore it's not as if Jealous is the only "other" name of God at all, see this list. God is never called Jealous in the New Testament either, but he is called Father, Lord, God, I AM, Master - and all of these names/titles also appear in the Old Testament.

I also forgot to mention that in the DSS, we sometimes find the Tetragrammaton written in Paleo-Hebrew script like this:



A fact not shared by "Jealous".

[Minimalist]

for pointing out that the first question is misleading in that there are two different sets of Ten Commandments and so two correct answers to the question.

Of course....that raises the question "why are there two?" Did "god" forget?

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Revised edition

[Jacob(smooth)]

We have an edit button, why shouldn't he?

[Cyberman]

We need one to correct our mistakes (and clean up after you lot, if you're Staff). Call me picky, but I'd expect a bit more in the way of accuracy from someone in charge of running the Universe.

[xpastor]

Thanks, however what about the Name of God (Q3)? I would have thought I made a very strong point on this one.

A multiple choice question is flawed if it contains two correct answers as in #1. However, a multiple choice question is legitimate as long as it has only one correct answer, even if it neglects to mention other correct answers. In the answers the author of the test implicitly accepts the Tetragrammaton JHWH as a name of God but rules out the formation of Jehovah, which was one of the four choices along with Jealous, Holy and Righteous.

[Aractus]

I agree with the premise with what you're saying, but not the detail.

Well that's plainly incorrect as Jehovah/Yehovah/Jehowah/Yehowah is a direct transliteration as is YHWH, and does not represent anything other than the Tetragrammaton. Yahweh is a composite, and not a direct transliteration. Just like Jesus is a transliteration of ἸΗΣΟῦΣ which itself represents and is a translation of ישוע another transliteration from Hebrew is جسس. Nobody argues that Jesus/Joshua/Yesus/Yoshua/Jeshua/Yeshua isn't all the same Hebrew name - and we all agree that "Jesus" was never the correct pronunciation of the Hebrew name, and just because it was written down transliterated into Greek doesn't mean it was ever vocalized at the time of Christ as a Greek variant. Yet that doesn't make his name being "Jesus" as opposed to "Joshua" wrong, and the same applies to the Tetragrammaton, and the fact that it too can be transliterated in different ways into English.

And in order to make his argument he is appealing to Christian apologetics, Christian scholars for his answer. He doesn't get his answer from the Jews, which use "Yehovah" (although they don't say it - well actually some do and that's how we know how the Jews pronounce it), or from the Muslims who teach that the Tetragrammaton isn't a name. But even so, all Christians pretty much recognize that any why you write the Tetragrammaton as a transliteration: YHVH/YHVH/JHWH/YHWH/Jehovah/Yehovah/Jehowah/Yehowah/Jahweh/Yahweh you are writing one and the same thing. The question didn't ask anything about vocalization, and in written form virtually all Christians would agree that all are correct, and in written form they are all equal, and we even recognize LORD as representing it too.

[xpastor]

I agree with the premise with what you're saying, but not the detail.

... Nobody argues that Jesus/Joshua/Yesus/Yoshua/Jeshua/Yeshua isn't all the same Hebrew name - and we all agree that "Jesus" was never the correct pronunciation of the Hebrew name, and just because it was written down transliterated into Greek doesn't mean it was ever vocalized at the time of Christ as a Greek variant. Yet that doesn't make his name being "Jesus" as opposed to "Joshua" wrong, and the same applies to the Tetragrammaton, and the fact that it too can be transliterated in different ways into English.

And in order to make his argument he is appealing to Christian apologetics, Christian scholars for his answer. He doesn't get his answer from the Jews, which use "Yehovah" (although they don't say it - well actually some do and that's how we know how the Jews pronounce it), or from the Muslims who teach that the Tetragrammaton isn't a name. But even so, all Christians pretty much recognize that any why you write the Tetragrammaton as a transliteration: YHVH/YHVH/JHWH/YHWH/Jehovah/Yehovah/Jehowah/Yehowah/Jahweh/Yahweh you are writing one and the same thing. The question didn't ask anything about vocalization, and in written form virtually all Christians would agree that all are correct, and in written form they are all equal, and we even recognize LORD as representing it too.

I can't offer a definitive rebuttal of this, just a comment to bear in mind. The Jews do not necessarily know how their language was pronounced many centuries ago. A long time ago back in grad school I studied Old Norse. Modern Icelandic is but little changed from that in grammar. However, the Icelanders believe the pronunciation is equally unchanged over the centuries, a view not shared by any linguists outside Iceland.

When I was in the ministry, I avoided the name Jehovah like the plague because of the JWs.

[Bad Writer]

37/50. People actually believe in this shit?

[xpastor]

37/50. People actually believe in this shit?

Well, no, not this particular shit. They believe an assortment of cherry-picked proof texts which they have been fed in Bible studies and sermons and (for pastors) seminary classes. But as for the raw unfiltered Bible which most of these were taken from, as someone once said, for most Christians the Bible is like the software license agreement—you click Agree without reading it.