This is a great question, but one that doesn't have a very simple answer. Actually, it has more to do with translating from one language to another, rather than differences in faith and belief. We'll try to keep it simple, but we apologize in advance if it seems too complicated.
From the start, there are two things that we want to be sure are understood. First, Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, are all names used to refer to the same God. These are simply the ways that people from different faith traditions identify the "personal" name of God. Second, referring to God by name (whether that name is Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, or simply God,) should always be done with utmost respect, and never casually or trivially.
So now to answer the question...
We need to remember that the personal name of God, as it was revealed to Moses, was originally recorded in the Book of Exodus in ancient Hebrew. Hebrew uses an alphabet different than the "western" one we are familiar with. In addition, when words were written in ancient Hebrew, only consonants (no vowels!) were recorded. So immediately we should see that the first problem is how to translate the "letters" of the Hebrew alphabet so the name "sounds" the same in a language using a different alphabet.
Here's where it gets even trickier! You are probably aware that even with the same alphabet, sometimes the same letter has different sounds in different languages. For example, you know what sound the letter "J" has in English, right? Well, in German it sounds more like a "Y", and in French like "zh!" So when modern scholars began working with the scriptures in their own languages, they used the sounds that their language gave to particular letters. If the name began with a "Y" sound, an English speaking scholar would use the letter "Y," but a German speaking scholar would use the letter "J."
Most of the original research regarding the Hebrew name of God was done by German scholars. They used a "J" (their "Y" sound) for the first letter of God's name. But when English speaking scholars saw the "J," they pronounced it with the "J" sound familiar to English speaking people. In more recent years, however, most scholars have come to agree that the personal name of God is probably more accurately translated into English by using the consonants "YHWH." This is where the name Yahweh, which is used by most Catholics, comes from. |
