The Sacred Name Movement (SNM) is a movement within Adventism concerned with emphasizing the use of the Hebrew name of God.[1] Influenced by Clarence Orvil Dodd, the movement considers the use of God's name as important as the Jewish festivals. SNM believers also generally observe many of the Old Testament laws and ceremonies such as the Seventh-day Sabbath, Torah festivals, and kashrut food laws.[2]
The Sacred Name Movement includes various small groups (such as Yahweh's Assembly in Messiah, and Yahweh's Assembly in Yahshua) generally unified by the use of the name Yahweh and a Hebraic form for the name of God's son (such as Yahshua).[citation needed] SNM groups generally maintain the seventh day Sabbath (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) along with the Jewish feast days such as Passover and the Feast of Weeks.[citation needed] They believe that the Torah law was not abolished.[citation needed] They believe that Yahshua is the son of Yahweh, and that his life, death, burial, and resurrection provide salvation. They believe that after persons repent of their sins, they should be baptized in the name of Yahshua.[citation needed]
SNM groups reject Easter and Christmas as pagan in origin. The movement also rejects the doctrine of the Trinity as unbiblical.[3] Groups within the movement have differed on doctrinal points, such as the wearing of beards and about what constitutes a Sabbath rest.[citation needed] Though it has similar beliefs, the Assemblies of Yahweh (headquartered in Bethel, Pennsylvania) distanced itself from the Sacred Name Movement, referring to it as "disorganisation" and "confusion".[citation needed]
The Sacred Name Movement arose in the early 20th century out of the Church of God (Seventh Day) movement. The movement was influenced by Joseph Franklin Rutherford after he changed the name of the main branch of the Bible Student movement to Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931.[4] C. O. Dodd, a member of the Church of God (Seventh Day) who began to keep the Jewish festivals (including Passover) in 1928, adopted sacred name doctrines in the late 1930s.[5] To promote his views, Dodd began to publish The Faith magazine in 1937.[5] American religious scholar J. Gordon Melton wrote, "No single force in spreading the Sacred Name movement was as important as The Faith magazine."[6]
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Further information: Sacred Name Bibles and Tetragrammaton in the New Testament |
Angelo Traina, a disciple of Dodd, undertook the production of a Sacred Name edition of the Bible, publishing the Holy Name New Testament in 1950 and the Holy Name Bible in 1962, both based on the King James Version, but with some names and words changed to Hebraic forms, such as "God" to "Elohim", "LORD" to "Yahweh" and "Jesus" to "Yahshua".[7] Other Sacred Name Bibles have since been produced, and most Sacred Name Movement denominations use a Sacred Name Bible.