Martin SACRED NAME Rebuttal

THE NAME THEY COULD NOT SILENCE A Point-by-Point Answer to Ernest L. Martin's "Did Christ or the Apostles Use the Name YAHWEH?" (Good News, Nov–Dec 1972) Rev. John Shane Vaughn Introduction: "Proof Positive" That Proves the Opposite In 1972, Ernest L. Martin, then chairman of theology at Ambassador College, told the Worldwide Church of God that the use and pronunciation of the Name of YAHWEH is "unimportant and unnecessary today." He claimed it "can be proved absolutely" that the Messiah never spoke the Name. Those are big words. "Absolutely." "Never." "Proof positive." A man who writes like that had better have his evidence in order. He did not. When his article is held up to the light of Scripture, and even to the light of the very Jewish sources he leaned on, it collapses under its own weight. His central text concedes his opponent's case. His history is contradicted by the Mishnah and the Talmud. His Dead Sea Scrolls claim is false on its face. His own list of ancient witnesses refutes his own thesis. And his conclusion contradicts his own opening. Let us take them one at a time. ERROR #1: He Builds His Case on a Reading He Admits Is Wrong Martin's entire biblical argument rests on Leviticus 24:11 and 16. He argues the Hebrew verb (he writes it nachav; the root is naqab, נקב) can mean "to pronounce distinctly," and that the Jews after Nehemiah took it that way, and so stopped saying the Name. But read what Martin himself writes about the meaning "to blaspheme": "the traditional (and certainly the correct) way" Certainly the correct way. His words. He admits the verse condemns blasphemy, not pronunciation. He admits the Jewish reading he is about to defend is a misreading. Then, at the end of the article, he turns around and says the prohibition against using the Name "has far stronger warrant from the Bible" than using it. Which is it? A man cannot call one reading "certainly correct" and then build his conclusion on the other one. And the context settles it. Look at Leviticus 24:10–16: Verse 10: the son of the Israelite woman and an Egyptian father strove together with a man of Israel in the camp. This is a fight. Verse 11: he blasphemed the Name and cursed (qalal). Verse 15: "Whosoever curseth his Elohim shall bear his sin." Verse 16: "And he that blasphemeth the name of YAHWEH, he shall surely be put to death." Verse 15 defines the crime before verse 16 sentences it. The crime is cursing. A man in a brawl hurled the Name of YAHWEH as a curse. That is not a pronunciation case. That is a blasphemy case, exactly as Martin conceded. And notice how Martin's "other meaning" is actually used. In Numbers 1:17, 1 Chronicles 12:31, 16:41, Ezra 8:20 and the rest, the word describes men who were designated by name, specified for a task. It is about identifying, not about forbidding. Not one of Martin's proof texts uses the word to prohibit anything. The only verse Martin offers as a biblical prohibition is a verse he admits does not say what the prohibition needs it to say. ERROR #2: He Ignores What Scripture Actually Commands Martin never deals with the commands of Scripture concerning the Name. Not once. Here is what he walked past: Exodus 3:15 — "YAHWEH... this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." Not until the time of Nehemiah. Forever. Exodus 20:24 — "In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." Psalm 105:1 — "O give thanks unto YAHWEH; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people." Isaiah 12:4 — "Praise YAHWEH, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted." Isaiah 42:8 — "I am YAHWEH: that is my name." Isaiah 52:6 — "Therefore my people shall know my name." Jeremiah 16:21 — "They shall know that my name is YAHWEH." Joel 2:32 — "Whosoever shall call on the name of YAHWEH shall be delivered." (Quoted by Peter in Acts 2:21 and Paul in Romans 10:13.) Zephaniah 3:9 — a pure language, "that they may all call upon the name of YAHWEH." Malachi 1:11 — "My name shall be great among the Gentiles." Now set beside those the one thing YAHWEH says about people forgetting His Name: Jeremiah 23:26–27 — the false prophets "think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams... as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal." Baal means "lord." The fathers traded the Name for a title meaning "lord." Martin's prescription is to substitute Adonai, which means... "Lord." He has described, approvingly, the very swap Jeremiah condemned. Silence Is Pictured as Judgment, Not Holiness Martin treats the silencing of the Name as piety. The prophets treat it as a curse: Amos 6:10 — in the day of judgment, among the dead, a voice says: "Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of YAHWEH." That is the speech of a judged people, not a holy one. Jeremiah 44:26 — YAHWEH swears against Judah in Egypt: "my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah." This is a sentence, not a sanctification. When the Name goes silent in Judah, Scripture calls it judgment. Martin calls it obedience. ERROR #3: His History Is Contradicted by the Jewish Sources Themselves Martin's thesis needs one thing above all: that after the death of Simon the Righteous (~270 BC), no one, "not even priests in the Temple," spoke the Name. He says "there can be no doubt about it." There is a great deal of doubt about it, and it comes from the Mishnah and Talmud, the very tradition he leaned on. 1. The Temple priests pronounced it. Mishnah Sotah 7:6 (also Tamid 7:2) describes the Priestly Blessing: in the Temple the Name was pronounced as it is written; in the provinces, a substitute was used. That is Temple practice recorded as ongoing, not a custom that ended in 270 BC. 2. The High Priest pronounced it on the Day of Atonement, and the people heard it. Mishnah Yoma 6:2: when the priests and the people standing in the Temple court heard the Expressed Name come forth from the mouth of the High Priest, they knelt, bowed, and fell on their faces. 3. A rabbi who lived before AD 70 heard it with his own ears. Rabbi Tarfon was a young priest in the last days of the Second Temple. The Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 71a) records him saying he stood on the platform, inclined his ear to the High Priest, and heard him pronounce the Name, muffled among the chanting of the priests. That is the generation of the apostles. Martin says no priest spoke it after 270 BC. A priest of the apostolic generation says he heard it. 4. The common greeting once used the Name, by rabbinic ordinance. Mishnah Berakhot 9:5 records that it was ordained that a man should greet his fellow with the Name, citing Boaz greeting the reapers: "YAHWEH be with you" (Ruth 2:4). 5. The rabbis were still arguing about it. Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 records Abba Saul adding to those who lose the world to come "he who pronounces the Name according to its letters." You do not need a rule against something no one can do. The rule proves people knew it and some were saying it. So Martin's "no doubt" history is this: a custom of restriction grew up over centuries, it was disputed, it was never total, and the Name was still being spoken in the Temple when YAHSHUA walked into it. That is a tradition of men, not a command of YAHWEH, and not even a consistent tradition at that. ERROR #4: The Dead Sea Scrolls Claim Is Simply False Martin writes that in the Dead Sea Scrolls "we find a complete avoidance of using the tetragrammaton." Complete? The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a), the most famous scroll of them all, writes YHWH in ordinary square script throughout the book of Isaiah, hundreds of times. The biblical scrolls from the caves preserve the Name as a matter of course. What some sectarian writers did was set it apart: the Psalms Scroll (11QPs^a) and the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) write it in ancient paleo-Hebrew letters so it stands out on the page. The Community Rule (1QS 8:14) marks it with four dots. Setting the Name apart in reverence is the opposite of erasing it. They wrote it. They copied it. They preserved it. Martin quoted a scholar on the sectarian writings and presented it as true of the whole find. It is not. ERROR #5: The Greek Bible of the First Century Carried the Name Martin assumes the Septuagint always read Kyrios ("Lord"), and so the Messiah and apostles simply followed the Greek. The manuscripts say otherwise: Papyrus Fouad 266 (1st century BC): a Greek Deuteronomy with the Name written in Hebrew letters inside the Greek text. 4Q120 (pap4QLXXLev^b, from Qumran, 1st century BC): a Greek Leviticus that renders the Name as ΙΑΩ (IAO) in Greek letters, a pronounceable form. The Naḥal Ḥever Minor Prophets Scroll (8ḤevXIIgr, around the turn of the era): Greek text with the Name in paleo-Hebrew letters. The Greek Scriptures in the hands of Jews in the generation of the Messiah were not uniformly Kyrios. Some carried the Name itself, in Hebrew letters, and at least one carried it in Greek letters meant to be read aloud. The substitution Martin treats as the original was a later development. ERROR #6: His Own Witnesses Refute Him This is where Martin's article turns on itself. To argue that "Yahweh" is a Samaritan guess, Martin lists ancient authorities who give the "real" Jewish pronunciation: Diodorus Siculus, IAO. Irenaeus, IAO. Origen, IAOU. Epiphanius, IAO. Jerome, IAHO. He also brings Theodoret saying the Jews used IAO. Stop and think about what he just did. His thesis is that no one pronounced the Name from 270 BC onward. Then he produces a pagan Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, writing in the 1st century BC, who reports that Moses ascribed his laws to the god called IAO. How did a Greek in Sicily, in the middle of Martin's "total silence," come to know a spoken form of the Name of the Elohim of Israel? Someone was saying it. Martin cannot have it both ways. Either the Name was never spoken, and these witnesses could not exist, or these witnesses are real, and the Name was spoken. He chose to call the witnesses. And the witness Martin mentions but never quotes is Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 5.6), who gives the form IAOUE, which read aloud is very close to Yah-weh. Martin names Clement as a source of the modern pronunciation, then hurries past him to the Samaritans. A Christian teacher in Alexandria, not a Samaritan, recorded it. The Name Is Not "Lost"; Scripture Spells Half of It for Us Martin says the vowels were lost. Yet Scripture itself preserves the short form of the Name: Exodus 15:2 — "YAH is my strength and song." Psalm 68:4 — "Extol him... by his name JAH." (KJV) Every Hallelu-YAH in the Psalms. The prophets' own names: Isa-iah (Yesha-yahu), Jerem-iah (Yirme-yahu), Elij-ah (Eli- yahu). The Name rang out every time a prophet was called by name. The Jewish garrison at Elephantine in Egypt (5th century BC) wrote the Name as YHW, Yahu. The first syllable is not a mystery. It is in the Bible, in the prophets' names, and in the songs of Israel. ERROR #7: "There Is Not a Hint" He Was Accused of Blasphemy? Martin argues that if the Messiah had ever spoken the Name, He would have been called a blasphemer, and since "there is not a hint" anyone accused Him, He must never have done it. Not a hint? The Gospels are full of it: Mark 2:7 — "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies?" Matthew 9:3 — "This man blasphemeth." John 8:59 — after "Before Abraham was, I am," they took up stones to cast at Him. John 10:31–33 — they took up stones again: "For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy." Matthew 26:65 — the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, "He hath spoken blasphemy." YAHSHUA was accused of blasphemy over and over, nearly stoned twice, and condemned to death on that exact charge. Martin's premise that He was never accused is false on the face of the Gospel record. Now, honesty requires this: the Gospels do not say the charge was specifically "He pronounced the Name." But Martin is the one who said "proof positive" and "absolutely." He built his proof on a premise, "no accusation," that the text flatly contradicts. When the premise falls, the "proof" falls with it. And consider: the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 7:5) teaches that a blasphemer is not culpable unless he pronounces the Name itself, and that the judges rend their garments when the Name is repeated in testimony. The High Priest rent his garments at the trial of YAHSHUA. Martin argues the trial proves the Name was never spoken. The rabbinic law of blasphemy at least raises the question of whether it proves the opposite. ERROR #8: He Assumes the Messiah Obeyed the Traditions of the Elders Martin's entire argument hangs on one hidden assumption: that YAHSHUA would never violate the religious customs of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He says the Messiah "didn't abuse their sensitiveness." Did Martin read the Gospels? He healed on the Sabbath in front of them, repeatedly, and they plotted to kill Him for it (Mark 3:1–6). His disciples ate with unwashed hands, and He defended them (Mark 7:1–5). He told them to their faces: "Full well ye reject the commandment of Elohim, that ye may keep your own tradition... making the word of Elohim of none effect through your tradition" (Mark 7:9, 13). The ban on the Name is, by Martin's own history, a tradition that arose after Nehemiah from a reading of Leviticus that Martin himself calls incorrect. That is a textbook case of a tradition of men making the word of Elohim of none effect. And Martin's argument is that YAHSHUA, of all people, would have bowed to it. "The Jews would not have tolerated it" is not an argument. They did not tolerate Him. They crucified Him. ERROR #9: He Skips the Words of the Messiah About the Name Martin points out that YAHSHUA taught His disciples to pray "Our Father." He forgot to read the next line: Matthew 6:9 — "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name." The first petition of the Messiah's model prayer is about the Name. Not a title. The Name. And in His final prayer, the same prayer Martin cites to show He used "Father," YAHSHUA says: John 17:6 — "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me." John 17:26 — "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it." Declared. Made known. You do not "declare a name" to men who already know the title "Father." Martin quotes John 17 for the word "Father" and walks right past the verses that answer his question. Add to that: John 5:43 — "I am come in my Father's name." John 12:28 — "Father, glorify thy name." And a voice answered from heaven. Matthew 21:9; 23:39 — "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of YAHWEH," from Psalm 118:26, sung by the crowds and quoted by YAHSHUA Himself. His Own Name Carries the Name Here is what Martin never confronts. The Messiah's own name is YAHSHUA, "YAHWEH is salvation" (Matthew 1:21: "for he shall save his people"). Every time His mother called Him, every time a disciple addressed Him, every time a demon cried out against Him, the Name of the Father was in their mouths. YAH was spoken every day of His ministry. The New Testament Itself Speaks the Name Martin says neither the Messiah nor the apostles used it. Turn to Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6: "Alleluia." Hallelu-YAH, praise YAH. The Name, in its short form, sits in the Greek text of the New Testament, shouted by the great multitude in heaven. The last book of the Bible ends Martin's argument. And the redeemed are marked with it: "having his Father's name written in their foreheads" (Revelation 14:1; see also 3:12; 22:4). ERROR #10: His Conclusion Contradicts His Opening Martin opens by admitting that Elohim "is jealous over His name." He closes by saying the matter "must make little difference to God." A jealous Elohim to whom His Name makes little difference. Both cannot be true. He also quotes the Messiah as worshipping "in spirit, and in truth — not in syllables!" and cites John 4:34. The verse he means is John 4:24. And the words "not in syllables" are Martin's, not the Messiah's. He put his own conclusion inside quotation of Scripture with a wrong reference. And what is "truth"? "Thy law is the truth" (Psalm 119:142). The law that says "this is my name forever." Conclusion: What Martin Actually Proved Strip away the confident language and here is what Ernest Martin demonstrated in 1972: 1. That his only biblical prohibition rests on a reading he himself called incorrect. 2. That the ban on the Name was a post-biblical tradition, which is exactly what the Messiah warned against. 3. That the Name was spoken freely from Moses to Jeremiah to Ezra, by his own admission. 4. That ancient witnesses in his own list knew and recorded spoken forms of the Name in the very centuries he called silent. What he did not prove is the one thing he promised: that YAHSHUA "never" spoke the Name. He claimed "proof positive" and delivered an argument from silence, and the silence turned out to be noisy. The Name was not lost. It was buried under tradition, and Jeremiah told us who was doing the burying (Jeremiah 23:27). YAHSHUA came to declare it (John 17:26). The redeemed will bear it on their foreheads (Revelation 14:1). And YAHWEH has sworn: "This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." — Exodus 3:15 All generations includes this one. Rev. John Shane VaughnFirst Harvest Ministries InternationalP.O. Box 2757, Bay St. Louis, MS 39521