Question:

I wonder why isn’t the name Yahweh mentioned anywhere in the NT?   We only see Christ calling him Father in the gospels as well as the apostles addressing Him in the same way.  Has it been omitted anywhere in various translations?  For a new believer isn’t it essential to know that the Father God mentioned throughout in the NT happens to be Yahweh of the OT?

Answer:

YHWH or Yaweh is a Jewish word.  The New Testament was written in Greek and Yaweh is not a Greek word.  This is sufficient explanation for why the word is not found anywhere in the New Testament.  Even if Jesus or an apostle had used the word in their conversations in Aramaic, it probably would not have been carried over into a Greek New Testament.   By the way, for your information, God is NOT only referred to as Father in the New Testament.  He is also referred to as God (Greek Theos), which is the closest equivalent in Greek to Yaweh, although one could argue that there really is no equivalent to Yaweh in Greek, as God/Theos is a fairly generic word and Yaweh is unique to the Jewish God.  God is also called Lord (archon) in the New Testament and other words as well.  

There is no evidence that I have ever seen that a Greek or Aramaic word similar to Yaweh was omitted from the New Testament.  If you are in an Arabic-speaking country God is called Allah.  If you are in a Spanish-speaking country, God is called dios.  The actual word used for God is not an important issue in Christianity, at least if we take the Bible as our example.  For the Christian, it is fairly common knowledge that God is called YHWH in the Old Testament, although some translations do not transliterate the word.  I do not think this is an essential doctrine of Christianity for you to worry about, although knowledge of the words used to refer to God in the Old and the New Testament is something you should make yourself aware of.  Just so you know, in English translations of the Old Testament, YHWH is most commonly translated as Lord rather than Jehovah, although some translations do prefer Jehovah.   There is much discussion about the best way to translate into English, taking into account Jewish sensitivity to the word YHWH being said out loud or put on paper.  This is an interesting issue, but as far as I know, it has little if any importance in our translations of the Greek New Testament.

John Oakes

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