Names are important. It is difficult for us to conceive of things apart from their names. The many different names for God in the Bible describe and demonstrate His character. Jehovah (usually rendered “LORD” in the King James Version) appears often in the Scriptures. Jehovah means “the Eternal One, the Unchangeable One, the One Who was, and is, and is to come.” When Moses met God in the burning bush, he asked His name. “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14). God spoke as Jehovah, the self-existent God. The Hebrew people came to consider one particular name of God as His personal name. Scholars call this name, derived from four Hebrew letters, the “tetragrammaton” (from “tetra,” four, and “gram,” letter). The Jews were so concerned about using this name in vain that they would not even pronounce it when reading the Bible aloud. (They substituted Adonai meaning Lord.) As a result, the proper pronunciation of the original Hebrew is unknown. Most scholars say “Yahweh” or “Yahveh” is likely the proper pronunciation, although Jehovah has been used since the sixteenth century. The Bible stresses the importance of respect for God by emphasizing the importance of the name of God. Solomon said, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). The psalmist said, “He sent redemption unto

In conjunction with “Easter season,” the National Geographic Society released an ancient document dubbed the “Gospel of Judas.” In their news releases, National Geographic indicated the information in this third century papyrus codex threatened the “official” doctrine of the church by offering an alternative view of the Gospel story as revealed by biblical writers. In this “Gospel of Judas,” Judas was given special insight into the plans of Christ, and as His most favored disciple, it was his task to “betray” Jesus so that His plans could be carried out. The text does not include any mention of the crucifixion or resurrection. It is interesting that the “Gospel of Judas” is supposed to be a secret conversation between Jesus and Judas, although it is written in the third person, and could not have been written by either Jesus or Judas. Since neither Jesus nor Judas could have written it, how did this unknown writer know about this secret conversation? The document is a papyrus codex discovered near El Minya, Egypt, in the 1970s. It is no doubt a copy of an earlier Greek text that was condemned by Iranaeus, an early church father, about 180 A.D. It was probably produced by a second century member of a Gnostic sect. The Gnostics [from the Greek word for knowledge] believed that they had special knowledge not known to others, and they taught many things contrary to the Bible. The “Gospel of Judas,” like many other ancient documents (Gospel of Thomas, Shepherd of

We have long understood that the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament make up God’s complete revelation to man. The Bible does mention other ancient books, however. Joshua 10:13 says, “The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher?” Among the other books mentioned are the acts of Solomon (1 Kings 14:11), the books of Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer (1 Chronicles 29:29), and the books of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer (2 Chronicles 12:15). Even more interestingly, Paul mentions a previous epistle: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators” (1 Corinthians 5:9). Was the epistle telling them not to company with fornicators the original 1 Corinthians? Paul also wrote to the Christians of Colosse, “And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). What is the “epistle from Laodicea?” The sixty-six books that make up the canon1 of Scripture are those books that have met the test of time, and have apostolic authority. For example, Peter warned that some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand, and thus were sometimes twisted by false teachers, as “also the other scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16). Thus he considered Paul’s writings to be scripture [inspired writings]. The books accepted in the canon claim inspiration