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Originally Posted by mirevolver
Looking at the origional Hebrew writing of the Torah (First five books of the Bible, and believed by Jews to be written by God himself). The name of God is written with 4 consanants and no vowels, JHVH. From those four letters, both the names of Jehovah and Yahweh were derived. But because the vowels were not written, nobody knows the true pronounciation of the name of God.
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I think it's interesting to note that hei, vav and yud are all semi-vowels. They can represent both a consonant or a vowel, similar to the english y and old double-u (w), which conotes a more ambiguous entity than one name would imply. Back when I was trying to read this stuff, I remember some odd tense uses that we don't have in our current languages--like future perfect tense (something has already occurred in the future).
The term Jehovah, however, was a bastardization of those four letters and the vowels within the hebrew word
elohim (generic lord), which the Rabbi's would use in place of the actual name in order to satisfy the requirement that they not use their sovereign's name unworthily.
I also find it interesting that the commandment actually states not to use the name in vain--which means to bring it to not, or make it worthless. In a strange turn of events, the hebrew reluctance to use the word, in order to preserve, has resulted in a loss of the knowledge of its true pronunciation, ultimately resulting in violation of the commandment to not render the name worthless.
Now they will use things like G-d to prevent further spoilage, which I think is perverted but will save for later.
We do still have remnants of the hebrew pronunciation, however, in things like hallelujah, Jonah, Sarah, Yesh'ua (which, lets be honest, if you really believe what's written in that big book, you'd better get at least one name right--and we can be sure that since the dude was Jewish, his name wasn't
Jesus!; but meditating on all the names as progressive revelations, even to the point of questioning the craptastic trinity doctrine could prove extremely enlightening), and even Jamaicans give it a hard J and consider themselves his namesake.