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I have a question. I know that we as Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus was known pre-mortally as Jehovah and that He is the God of the Old Testament. My question is, are all references to “God” in the Old Testament referring to Jesus or are some of them referring to our Father in Heaven? I have always referred to God the Father as “God” and to Jesus Christ as “the Lord,” but are these terms used interchangeably in the Old Testament, and how do we know when the Old Testament is referring to the Father and when it’s referring to the Son? By far, the most common practice when translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into English is the following: “Lord” is the word used for Jehovah (Yah weh or YHWH, the 4 character tetragrammaton)
“God” is the word used for Elohim
Scholars who analyze the linguistics of the Old Testament Torah currently believe (generally) that it is a compilation woven together from 5+ authors. There were two main groups. One used the word Yah Weh for the name of their god. The other used the word Elohim. Elohim is probably a more ancient name, being a linguistic derivative of the Canaanite “El,” which was a lot like the Greek god “Zeus” — a leader of a council of lesser gods. One of the lesser gods was Ba’al, a storm god, who ends up being a lot like the Hebrew Yah Weh.
I’ve really grown to like the Old Testament a lot over time by the way
Who Elohim and Jehovah (Yah Weh) really are? Like you pointed out, Mormonism put their own stamp on that. I don’t think it would really work from a Mormon perspective to see the word Jehovah in the Old Testament and assume it is always Jesus, and then Elohim is always the Father. I think our theory on that is that it is always really Jehovah, except perhaps in a few places in early Genesis (the Adam and Eve creation story) where the Father is speaking (even though the Hebrew word might be YHWH).
In all honesty, this is one of the things about which I really don’t care if I ever think I know the “correct” answer, and I also have come to love the Old Testament – not because I think it is accurate history, but because it is fascinating to me. I like to think about it, but I don’t invest any certainty in it. Generally, “LORD” also seems to denote Elohim – but there is the interesting question of whether “Elohim” originally is a plural or singular noun. Like I said, I am fascinated by the Old Testament.
Interestingly one of the old names of Jupiter was Jove. I have read a piece where someone tried to connect Jove, which would have been pronounced Yoveh or Yoweh by the Romans, with YHWH… So who knows. I want to follow up on Brian’s comment. The Documentary Hypothesis believes that multiple authors composed the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy). The names Elohim and Jehovah are intermixed. According to this hypothesis, these early books were composed by the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and Northern Kingdom of Israel. One author used Elohim for the name of God and has been referred to as E. Another author used Jehovah (or Yahweh) as the name of God and has been referred to as J. Later editors combined the sources and used both Elohim and Jehovah as the name of God interchangeably. I did a post on the Documentary Hypothesis if you’re interested. http://www.mormonheretic.org/2009/07/19/the-documentary-hypothesis/ FAIR has an article confirming that these 2 names for God were used interchangeably. See
http://en.fairmormon.org/Nature_of_God/Elohim_and_Jehovah Here’s a quick conclusion from the FAIR website.
Quote:The conviction that Elohim was anciently the Almighty God and Father of us all, and Jehovah was and is Jesus the Christ, his Son is based on modern scripture (D&C 110:1–4) and not Biblical exegesis. The teachings of modern prophets and apostles has tended to reinforce this usage, such as when President Joseph F. Smith taught, “Among the spirit children of Elohim the firstborn was and is Jehovah or Jesus Christ to whom all others are juniors.”[7]
The LDS use of the name titles Elohim and Jehovah to designate God Our Heavenly Father and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ respectively is not meant to insist that this is how these titles were always used anciently, including in the Holy Bible. Rather, these titles are a naming convention used in the modern Church for clarity and precision. Since Christ may be spoken of as “the Father” in a great many senses, the modern Saints use these name-titles to avoid ambiguity, regardless of which ‘role’ of a divine Personage is being discussed.
Since this terminology was not standardized for convenience and clarity prior to the twentieth century, readers are cautioned not to expect the early writings of the Church to always reflect this practice, which arose only decades later. Likewise, attempting to read the Bible as if its writers followed the same modern practice is anachronistic, and may lead to confusion and misinterpretation.
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