In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. (John 1:1)
Occurs nearly 6000 times in the OT as the name of God, but increasing reverence caused it to be replaced in public reading by "Adonia" (My great Lord). When vowels were added to the Hebrew text, those of Adonai were combined with YAHWH to warn readers to substitute Adonai for Yahweh. so "Jehovah" is an incorrect hybrid of the Christian middle ages. In modern Jewish writing the same respect is maintained by writing 'Gd'.
The penatateuchal source J (from German Jahvah ) traces the name Yahweh to the earliest ages (Gen 4:26) but P attributes the first use to Moses (Exod 6:23). It is suggested that the name means 'He cause to be what exits', i.e Yahweh is the creator but it is much disputed whether the divine name 'means' anything. Yahweh is only one real ultimate God.
A name of the Hebrew God, represented in Hebrew by the tetra-grammaton (four letters) (Yod Heh Vav Heh) transileterated into Roman script YHWH. Because it was considered blasphemous to alter the name of God it was only written never spoken this resulted in the original pronunciation being lost. The names may have originally been derived from the old Semitic root (hawah) meaning "to be" or "to become.
