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Of course Christianity believes Jesus is God, but I am interested in this question for the argument that Jehovah (I AM), the name of God which later Jews were not allowed to speak, is a term not unique to the Father. In other words, is this special name 'I AM' just as valid for the Son, as it is the Father?

Is Jesus = (Jehovah/Yahweh/YHWH) in the flesh?

Note: Yahweh/YHWH are just more original Hebrew representations of the English word Jehovah or capital LORD in our Bibles. These are all the same meaning, i.e. the name 'I AM'.

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  • Clearly a Jehovah's Witness perpective on this would be interesting...
    – Affable Geek
    Mar 20, 2013 at 17:30
  • if you say Jesus is YHVH and the Father is YHVH, that makes two who are YHVH which is two YHVHs Is that correct, since YHVH is one Person not two?
    – user22650
    Aug 10, 2015 at 21:02

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In Trinitarian orthodoxy,

  • יַהְוֶה (Yahveh), commonly referred to as "the Tetragrammaton," is the name of God.
  • The Father is God, and thus, the name of the Father is Yahveh.
  • The Son is God, and thus, the name of the Son is Yavheh.
  • The Holy Spirit is God, and thus, the name of the Holy Spirit is Yahveh.
  • As there is only one God, there is only one name, Yahveh (יהוה), shared by the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

To note, יהיה - no matter what one assumes the nekkudot to be - could not translate into English as "I am." That would be אֶהְיֶה (ehyeh).

Zech. 2:11 proves that there is more than one person named Yahveh:

And many nations shall be joined to Yahveh in that day and shall be My people, and I will dwell in your midst (cp. Zech. 2:10), and you shall know that Yahveh of hosts sent Me to you (cp. Zech. 2:9).

Note the two persons identified by the name Yahveh (יהוה). The one who sends is the Father, and the one who is sent to dwell among Israel is the Son. This theme is especially emphasized in the Gospel and Epistles of John (cp. John 1:14; John 8:42; 1 John 4:14).

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  • I am fine with He who is. In understand it to have the same English meaning of I AM. Great verse you pulled out with Zech. Thanks.
    – Mike
    Mar 17, 2013 at 13:48
  • Is this answer still being edited? I appreciate the appeal to the Prophets, but I think some more edits may make for a complete answer. Please also consider Leviticus 26:12 and Revelation 1:17-18.
    – Andrew
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:08
  • @Andrew: I think there's way more biblical basis than I offered, but I don't have the time at the moment to invest. Hopefully in the future I can come back to it.
    – user900
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:12
  • Yes, hopefully.
    – Andrew
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:20
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Isaiah 44:6 “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.

Revelation 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”

Jesus = THE first and last (true)

Yahweh = THE first and last (true)

Jesus = Yahweh (true)

(two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, Mathematics/Logic)

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In John 8:58, Jesus says to the Pharisees, "Before Abraham was, I am". He was pointedly using the same language that God himself used when speaking to Moses in Exodus 3:14, and the Pharisees understood clearly that Jesus was claiming to be God. That's why they tried to stone him for blasphemy.

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Per John 1, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God....and the Word was made flesh.

Per John 14:6, "No one comes to the Father except through me (Jesus)."

Abraham was saved by Faith as per Genesis 15:4 & 6, "And behold, the word of the LORD came to him".."And he (Abraham) believed the LORD and he counted it to him as righteousness."

Therefore LORD, Yahweh God, is all three persons of the Trinity, but when Yahweh God is speaking to man, this is done by the person and in the role of the Son of God. And this is how people who received and accepted the Word of God were saved in the Old Testament as they came to the Father through the Son (Word) of God.

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Well the Biblical basis can be found in that Jesus often referred to himself as the 'Son of Man' which is a direct reference to the coming of the Messiah prophesied by the Prophet Daniel in the Old Testament.

There is also the matter of Jesus claiming to be able to forgive sins. This is as direct a claim at Messiahship that a first century Jews could make. The Jews knew that only God could forgive sins and it was one of the reasons that the Jewish authorities so wildly held him as a blasphemer.

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Christianity believes Jesus is God, or more specifically one person in God - the others being the Father and the Holy Spirit. The questions appears to accept that Jesus and God the Father are to be treated as separate persons in the Trinity, but asks for the biblical basis for concluding that Jesus is Yahweh, not the doctrinal basis for any such conclusion. In the following analysis I will refer to YHWH or Yahweh, but the English translation, Jehovah, is equally applicable.

In spite of common belief, we do not really know what the tetragrammaton, YHWH, means. It has always been written without vowel indicators and, since the Jews ceased saying the word after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, we do not know how it was once pronounced and therefore what vowels were included in the name.

Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger suggest in Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God: In Ancient Israel, page 393, Yahweh might originally have meant ‘he blows’, as a reference to his perceived original role as storm God. Lester L. Grabbe says in Ancient Israel, page 153, there is considerable – if not universal – support for the view that early Egyptian inscriptions mentioning Yhw, worshipped as a storm god in Midian, refer to the name Yhwh and that worship of Yhwh did not originate with Israel but was picked up sometime in the pre-settlement or settlement period. The Bible Study glossary agrees that ‘he blows’ has been suggested by scholars, based on etymology, along with 'He Is' and 'He Causes to Be', but, importantly in the present context, none of these has won general acceptance. The point here is not to prove that YHWH means something other than 'He Is', but that we do not know what it does mean, other than an ancient name for God.

If we can not be at all sure what YHWH meant in Old Testament usage, we can not speculate based on the assumption that in the Old Testament the name actually means 'He Is'.

Wikipedia says that Protestant commentaries often state that whenever John reports Jesus as saying ego eimi ('I am'), a claim to deity is implicit. This connection is made because it is assumed that ego eimi is related to I am that I am or Hebrew Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh in Exodus 3:14. A claim to deity is not at all controversial for Jesus, but this does nothing to justify a conclusion that the name Yahweh is as valid for the Son as for the Father.

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  • Sorry for the downvote Dick but I don't feel that this answers the question. You also seem to be making some blanket statements that don't acknowledge the beliefs of certain groups that self-identify as Christian.
    – Andrew
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:01
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    @Andrew The DV is no problem, but thank you for giving a reason. For me, the question is in two parts, an assumption about the meaning of YHWH, then a question as to whether this meaning applies to Jesus. To answer the question about Jesus properly, I must first deal with whether or not YHWH really means 'I am', and of course an unpointed archaic Hebrew word could mean different things. I therefore said "In spite of common belief, we do not really know what ... YHWH, means." As the OP asks for a biblical basis, not a doctrinal basis, I do not discuss doctrinal beliefs of particular groups.
    – Dick Harfield
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:31
  • I am reading the question differently I suppose. Because the OP tries to use every romanization and anglicanization he can, and based on the question title, I thought he just means to ask, Is Jesus Yahweh? (taking for granted the existence of a valid translation of that name), Is Jesus identically the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, the One who calls himself by that name?
    – Andrew
    Mar 15, 2016 at 1:58
  • @Andrew Most Christian denominations teach that Jesus is the 'second person' of the Trinity and therefore not identical to YHWH, so I could hardly write an answer on whether Jesus is identically YHWH without contradicting an almost universal belief, but I did write an answer on the next level. BTW: In biblical Hebrew the 3rd letter of the tetragrammaton is considered a waw (YHWH) but, with evolution of Hebrew pronunciation, modern Hebrew considers it a vav (therefore YHVH).
    – Dick Harfield
    Mar 15, 2016 at 4:00
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    @Andrew I believe that to be the case. As with many issues around Christian beliefs, it is not possible to say "universally held."
    – Dick Harfield
    Mar 15, 2016 at 20:02
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Yahweh is present with the expanded name of Yeshua (Jesus), meaning "Yahweh(Ye) Saves(shua).

Isaiah 9:6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Psalm 110:1-4 The LORD said to my Lord, Sit you at my right hand,

YHWH is THE FATHER and THE WORD of YHWH is YWHW since YHWH is the one who speak.

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    – Lee Woofenden
    Oct 28, 2016 at 6:33
  • I am not familiar with "expanded names" so it would be helpful if you would explain how the expanded name convention works. A single sentence does not do that thought you are trying to present justice.
    – KorvinStarmast
    Oct 28, 2016 at 12:18

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